Young Gator

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A850~Sony 70-400G@400mm~ISO 500~1/125sec~F7.1~manual exposure~HH~camera braced on my knee~overcast~1-31-2011~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS5/Redfield Fractalius
I create a dup layer, apply fractalius to it with saturation set at 0, so I have a black and white line drawing. Then I painted over the background with white, used the history brush to restore the eye, reduced opacity to 50%, increase saturation of base layer, flatten.
comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

my website

[Joe Senzatimore]

Detail is terrific. Love the comp. as well. Nice work.

[denise ippolito]

William, I really like the filtering. If it were mine I would crop the bottom right up to the bottom of the log so it's a clean edge. Nice base image and sharp details.

[Indranil Sircar]

The details are amazing... excellent processing.

[Christopher Miller]

Excellent pose and composition, Bill. The details in the gator's skin are just amazing. Well done!

[Steve Adkins]

Cool process and wonderfully detailed result, Bill. Thanks so much for sharing the work flow.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks for the kind words. Starting off with a base image with lots of detail helped, especially since it was close to full frame. Denise; I really like the reflection and would't crop it. I'm sure its just personal preference. regards~Bill

[denise ippolito]

Bill, I re-read my post I was unclear what I meant was to the bottom of the reflected log. I like the reflection also but the very small piece between the reflected log and the edge is what I was referring to (the area w/ your sig)-sorry I should have been more clear.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

No problem Denise!