Fractalius Female Wood Duck
Sony A850~Sony 70-400G@400mm~ISO1000~1/800sec~F7.1~manual exposure~HH~overcast~12-18-2010~Houston,Texas~CS5 /Redfield Fractalius
My usual frac treatment. Also as usual the history brush was used to restore the eye to the base image. Comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill
my website
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 12-20-2010 at 12:50 AM.
As Always Bill good work, I like the inquisitive look on the duck...colors and frac effect make the image
Nice effect Bill, I like the pale pink color tone in the BG -it really adds nicely to this duck. I am not crazy about the grain/noise that seems most visible in the water. I love the pose, sharp looking details and the subject. Nicely done.:)
Thanks Paul, Denise. Denise, I noted your comment about noise in the water, and since I haven't done anything differently yet similar observations have been made lately, I examined what was going on. I certainly wasn't noticing noise when I was working on the images.
Good news is it is not noise, or even grain. It has to do with the base image size. Sony A850 is a FF 24.6MP camera and I'm working with 6048x4032 (139.5MB in PS) images. The duck here was cropped to 4637 x3345 (88.8MB). Fractalius was doing the same thing. The problem is that when downsized for the web the typical fractalius structure is reduced in size so much it appears as noise. Regards~Bill
Bill, I'm glad you let me know. I looked at your image in ETL and I didn't see any noise there and the exposure looked great so I was thinking that you added it. Good to know.:)
This is lovely, showing the female with her subdued but elegant colors and patterns. I especially like the details of the patterning on her breast leading to her flanks, as well as her head pose and the shaggy feathers on the back of her head. Well done.
Nice image and application, Bill ... as usual.
Like the detail and colors of this, as well as the application of Fract to add but not distract from the image.
Nice colors and detail all around and I like the pose.
I usually reduce my images in size for BPN before I do anything to them. Of course if I want to print one I have to re-do it from scratch. I've only had to do that a few times, but it does make them look better for web presentation.
Thanks Nancy, Mark and Judy. Judy; I never reduce my images for BPN before I do anything to them. My images are created for print, and pretty large prints at that. Even if I created them for web presentation the visual effect on small images is radically different than with large images.
Mark pretty well summed it up;" Like the detail and colors of this, as well as the application of Fract to add but not distract from the image".
When you apply a filter effect to a small image the effect seems to takes over and this indeed distracts a great deal from the base image. Sometimes it is your intent to do this, especially with something like pixel bender. Fractalius can produce some very interesting effects, and I am not one to avoid trying them, but I usually use the filter to enhance textures by its ability to create very fine lines. regards~Bill
Beautiful work, Bill! Love the pose and color tones. I think it could maybe use a little CCW rotation. Well done! :)
Follow up About Image Size
Thanks Christopher. Indeed it needs CCW rotation!
Back to Judy's comment. Here is an example of an image I posted here a while back, where it was a considerable crop, and a smaller base image than I prefer. Note how the filter effect is much more pronounced. If I had reduced the size of the wood duck image to BPN web size, and then worked on it, the result would be similar. Then again some people might like it better that way....Regards~Bill
Last edited by WIlliam Maroldo; 12-20-2010 at 09:07 PM.
Beautiful! I love the detail, the softness, the gorgeous feathers, the eye, the soft water. You used frac just enough to bring out details but not make it look fake. Wonderful work.
Since I like to have the best of my images printed, I always work with the full size file, then make them smaller for web posting. It depends on what one's main forum for using the image is.Originally Posted by Judy Howle
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