GBH in habitat. at super-low angle

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

40D. 400f5.6L at f/6.3. iso 400. 1/3200s( techs set this way as I was hoping he will catch something). almost full-frame. I have some space around but lost it in minor levelling adjustment.

All opinions welcome.

[Sachin Saraf]

Excellent details, sharpness, HA and BG on this one Kaustubh...love the habitat as well,
only concern is line cutting the neck but there is hardly anything we can do about it on such shots..TFS

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Sachin, when you go super-low in any pond, you are going to get the line intersecting somewhere. I try not to have it behind the face. Easier with ducks, gulls etc...but with egrets and herons, much harder as its hard to guess how they will curve their neck. I think I got the perfect "neck position" here :-) that is exactly what I was waiting for before pressing the button.

[Sachin Saraf]

Yes that's what I was thinking there is trade off..If we go low for better POV we are bound to get line intersecting if we are shooting near a pond...but now I know how to make sure it is acceptable :-)

[Dumay de Boulle]

Another winner..great textures and colors.

[gail bisson]

Very nice. I like the perfect neck curve and the HA. I wish the OOF grasses were not in front of body (by the neck and tail) but this is a minor nit,
Gail
Perfect exposure

[Jonathan Ashton]

Excellent - beautiful colours.

[Grace Scalzo]

Good job, KD, just love the colors in this image. Your low angle shots are killer.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp, nicely framed, EXP right on and a loverly perspective. I like the little plant in front of the bird (below the lower breast).

[Randy Stout]

Kaustubh:

Nice techs, sharp, well exposed, good HA, great shooting angle. Good location of far shore line intersection with body.

The green OOF foreground stuff overlapping the body is pretty subtle, but it would be easy to clean it up. You can do a better job on the original. Used the selective color brush to replace the green with gray and blue as needed.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Had to look six times to see what Randy fixed. And fix it well he did! WTG Randy! Can you explain in more detail what you did? (I have never even heard of the Selective Color Brush much less used it....)

[Randy Stout]

Had to look six times to see what Randy fixed. And fix it well he did! WTG Randy! Can you explain in more detail what you did? (I have never even heard of the Selective Color Brush much less used it....)

Artie:

I have to give credit to Roy van Loo, a fine local photographer who worked for our local paper and spend a lot of years working in photoshop. He mentioned it to me after I posted a loon flapping its wings with a disturbing shore line in the background.

I reduced the color in the background by desatting the appropriate color channel, but Roy told me about the color replacement brush. It is the 3rd brush down in the brush palette. There are lots of settings to play around with, but the defaults are a good place to start. In the mode box, you need to be in Color mode. Just like the regular brush, you have a color eyedropper that you can use to choose the color you want to use. However, the absolutely killer aspect of this brush is that it doesn't eliminate the underlying texture or detail. I think of it more as a tinter, changes the color, doesn't cover up the detail.
It won't work very well if there is a significant difference in the luminosity of the color to be replaced and the underlying subject. For example, if the OOF green had been dense enough to cast a darker shadow on the bird for example, the color could be replaced, but the luminosity would not match. There is a luminosity setting in the mode box, but that destroys all the underlying detail in the process. I am still working on some of the subtleties of this one, so may learn to finesse it a bit more.

I can't get Roy to post his images, but did want to give him credit for this very useful technique.

Cheers

Randy

[Raymond Lee]

Before Randy's fix, I really love the environment and the lighting! When shooting at a lower angle, there's that risk of environmental elements covering up the bird. Randy sure did a good job with the simple touchup! Removing the green sure makes a difference!

Cheers,
Raymond

[RakeshDhareshwar]

Randy's repost has done wonders to this already wonderful shot !! Lovely textures , Nice BG ...not too hung up about the line in the BG .

[arash_hazeghi]

Great pose and nice display of enviroment

[Randy Stout]

I just wanted to clarify the tool I used. I called it the selective color brush, which is the name I learned it as , but it is correctly called the "color replacement brush". Same location as described above.

This is an old tool in photoshop, and not very exciting compared with some of the new stuff, but in the right situation, it works very well, and is very easy to use.

Sorry about the confusion I caused.

Randy

[David Pugsley]

Randy's edit is great...will no doubt use the technique in the future.
Love shots showing the environment and this is a winner for me. The many layers from foreground to background do it for me.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Randy....that is some excellent work. Thx for taking the time and explaining how you did it.

[Robert Holguin]

Wonderful shot. Excellent pose, great detail and I really like the habitat. Well done.

[Nico Steenberg]

Great angle and DOF with good colours and exposure