The sunset was even more spectacular than normal this particular evening, topped off by sweeping rain showers and a Secretary bird roosting on this Acacia.
D3s 500VRII 1/400s ISO500@f/4 Masai Mara, Oct 2010. F/F.
Very nice comp. and good job positioning yourself to get the clean profile. Loved this shot. Wishing the sky behind the bird was a bit brighter...you can try doing that via curves.
Thanks Kaustubh & Randy,
the light here is fairly accurate and exhibited what I saw that evening, I did attempt some lightening (via curves of course) but looked unnatural and tended to wash out the rain showers in the BG sky.
I really like the original, but did want to try my hand at tweaking it.
I used the dodge tool at 15% opacity and lightly painted in a little bit lighter background behind the bird. I tried to leave the same slightly irregular edges and boundaries of the original sky.
I thought about doing a more complex gradient layer etc., but this seemed to get me the effect I was after. It didn't change the delicate balance in the lower half so that the showers still show nicely.
I purposefully kept the change subtle to honor the feel of the original. It could easily be adjusted brighter to taste.
Cheers
Randy
Last edited by Randy Stout; 09-19-2011 at 06:29 PM.
Hi Marc, I like the setting and overall comp. Colours look good, and I can see this in a very large print hanging on a company wall. Well spotted. I also like Randy's subtle repost.
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