Hunting Green Heron (juvi)

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A850~Sony70-400G@400mm~ISO 1000~F/8~1/1250~hand held~manual exposure~7-18-2011~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas, CS5/PixelBender/Fractalius
Sorry, I've been out the loop a while. This one is a combination of fractalius and pixel bender oil paint. comments and critique welcomed~regards~Bill

texas photo forum stuff

[Dave Woeller]

Another superb image. I like the tones in this and the filtering on the Heron is fantastic, as usual. May I ask about the small spots in the background that look a bit like raindrops. Is that a result of the filter or is it part of the base image?

[Judy Howle]

I love the filter effects on the heron. The yellow background is interesting. Is that from scum on the water?

[Bob Miller]

Will....Wow! The filters really made that heron come alive. Where can I get Pixel bender?

[Cheryl Slechta]

Beautiful image, William. I love the pose and the filtering.

[Brendan Dozier]

Really like the pose and POV on this, William. Nice application and combo of filters to give it a fine illustrated look. Nice work!

[Paul Lagasi]

Another beauty, welcome back Bill..I missed these

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Appeciate the comments!
Dave; the base image background was smooth, so what looked like raindrops to me as well are the result of the combination of filters, mostly pixel bender that creates sort of coma shaped edges on smooth backgrounds, which were narrowed by fractalius. Since it was so evenly distributed I left as it was, yet it would be quite possible to smooth the background after the filter treatment, if I needed to. I develop specific effects, usually using Topaz adjust/detail/clean, Fractalius, or Pixel Bender and then incorporate them into an action. With the action I am one click away from the completed image. This is very useful since you can see results very quicky for specific base images, and determine if the base image needs any pre-filter editing.
Bob; pixel bender is a free plugin from Adobe for CS5 that has a number of presets, oil paint being one of them. One reason I upgraded to CS5 was to be able to use PB, though I later found out a CS4 version might exist. One thing to note is that it is very graphic card intensive, and in order to work on large images you will need a relatively high end graphics card. There is a size limit of 4096 x 4096 pixels, but only if the graphics card can support it.
regards~Bill

[denise ippolito]

Really great pose Bill. I like the sharp details and man I love that raised foot!!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Bill, the greenie really looks great in this one. I love the color and tone of the bg but I would vote for smoothing away the artifacts. While interesting, I feel that they compete for the eye's attention and the bird deserves undivided attention.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Bill,
I'm leaning with Kerry's assesment and I might tone down the log just a touch. I think these small tweaks will make this shine! Great use of filter combos and super subject too!