Kildeer

[Judy Howle]

I made the photo in January when nearly the whole large lake created by the Stennis dam on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway here froze over. The kildeer was coming off the icy lake onto the shore. I used Pixel Bender with several layers, layer masks and adjustments on different parts of the image. I used a couple of textures that show up better on the ice.
Judy

[denise ippolito]

Awesome colors and effect Judy. It appears to have a slight halo around the bird. May just be my eyes they are tired. Lets see what others say. I esp. like the BG texture. Beautiful!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Judy, I like PB effect on the lower bg and might like to see a little of it on the kildeer. The texture of the ice is nice but the shooting angle makes it difficult to make out that you are looking at frozen water - it seems more like a backdrop. I like how the colors of the bird mimic the environment. (Check the list of upcoming themes for something along those lines...)

[Indranil Sircar]

Beautiful composition and effect, Judy. I too like the texture on the ice. Great pose and color. TFS.

[Judy Howle]

Thanks everyone. I re-worked it entirely. Of course it doesn't look exactly the same. The ice's actual colors and texture there doesn't look like ice, being darkish blue and brown mottled, so it'll just look like a mystery background. :o Kerry, I tried to put a little more texture in the bird with PB and Topaz Clean. I ended up with less in the foreground because I started with a low-res web image the firs time but I hunted down a hi-res this time so I could print one. It was sized a wee bit over 8 x 10 at 240 ppi. If you are only preparing a web image, keep in mind that PB really works better in lots of cases if you use a low-res 100 or 72 ppi image, so if you are getting finely detail brush strokes as in this one you can lower the ppi. I did that for one image, lowered it to 100 before running PB and then I up-rezed it to 240 for a print but haven't printed it yet.

I used 2 new textures from the old one including the one with "snow" which I love, plus the same one as before.

Denise it still looks like a little halo there and I don't know why. It was not there in the full size image that I could see. Must be an optical illusion!

[Christopher Miller]

Very lovely work, Judy! The first version was great, and I love the second version even more! It has that old, slightly distressed look that I love so much. Great colors and pose. The only things that I can think of that might make it better would be a slight head turn towards the camera and a slightly lower shooting angle to separate the bird's body from the BG sticks, but both those things are quite minor IMO. Are the textures you used yours, or did you download them from somewhere?

[denise ippolito]

Wow Judy! I love the repost. The added detail in the Kildeer really adds to the image. I think the halo is gone.:)

[Judy Howle]

Thanks so much Christopher! I was shooting out the car window on the boat launch ramp so the kildeer was downhill from me.

Denise, I'm glad you don't see a halo anymore! I'm pretty sure I did that being careless with a layer mask on top of the head which I was lightening.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Judy, I really like both of them. The first has a Currier and Ives look to me that I find appealing but I think I like the textures on the repost better. Either way, they're beautiful.

[Glenda Simmons]

So, I guess I'm an odd-ball, as I like the first one, better :confused: It really looked like a painting. Very nice. I was totally lost trying to read your follow-up comment, Judy, but it does not take much to get me confused. Using any type of filters is very new to me, but you guys are opening my eyes. :)