Another image from a few years back; Canon 30D, 400mm, f/16@1/400. Shot in the 1904 Aviary of the St. Louis Zoo, this was an image shot at mid day in very harsh light with some shadow playing over the egret; it was one of those that I loved the pose but knew the light kept it from being the image I really wanted. Brought it up this morning in PS; applied Fractalius first, using one the Shaggy preset and then tweaking a few of of the sliders a bit; lowered the opacity on that layer to about 80%. Then ran NIK Color Efex's Tonal Contrast over it on another layer. A third layer was used to run the image through Topaz Clean, and a fourth layer for NIK's Pastel. Tweaked the opacity of the layers here and there; merged down; masked out the eye. Looking forward to hearing your suggestions and comments.








