Yearbook Picture

[Dave Woeller]

Not enough to be called filter abuse, but more than I usually do. This young Heron posed for his high school yearbook pic for me. I took him to Topaz Adjust to beef up the detail and then used a plugin from Flaming Pear called Aetherize to soften and put a glow on that image. Seems like a contradiction in effort, but with a bit of work I liked the final result. Finally I did a mask to bring back a bit of sharpness to the eye area. Seems really subtle to me for all that work and soft and subtle hasn't been my strong suit. :( New directions! I really liked the way the aetherize manipulated the background. What do you all think?

[denise ippolito]

Dave, Very nice young Heron and sharp eye. I do wish it were turned a bit more towards us or there was a bit more room on the left to give the appearance that the bird is engaged in the scene. I like the effect of the filters. I think the strong details play well off the softness and the BG colors are gorgeous. I might try to eliminate the halo around the bird if it were mine. Nice work and good to see you stepping a little out of the norm.:)

[Julie Kenward]

Agree with Denise but I also like your BG - I'm just wondering what it would look like when printed. ??? I also think you could tone down the yellow near the eye just a tiny bit so it isn't so "electric". I do really like the final effect on the bird as well - it softened his feathers nicely and you painted back in a nice amount of detail.

[Kerry Perkins]

Dave, good for you to push yourself out of your "box" and try some new techniques. I think this works really well. There are many different ways to use the combination of detail and blur and it's fun and educational to give them a try! I think the bg works fine but I would be tempted to do something with those green highlight areas.

[Indranil Sircar]

Very nice composition, Dave. Agree with Denise on the space in from the bird. Love the colors and soft smooth texture to the image. Nicely done.

[Mark Fuge]

Nice image and application, Dave.

Like the soft with the focused eye.

[Arthur Morris]

I love the soft tones and the soft feathers. As always, a good head angle here would have yielded a better final image. I am not a fan of the big halo.

[Dave Woeller]

Thank you everyone for the feedback on this.. Your honest and constructive comments will only help me grow and improve. As I said before this is a bit of a different approach for me and I certainly appreciate the guidance. I think the halo may have crept in during the Topaz portion and after viewing it a bit more,I agree it needs to go. I have a series of this bird so maybe I'll just start again and try to find a better HA. Thanks again to everyone.

[Arthur Morris]

Super Dave. Folks who look at critiques with an open mind and heart as you do will improve quickly. The always-defensive folks not so quickly....