Cormorant Pair

[Brendan Dozier]

Going through some raw images from last year, decided to try an OOTB treatment with this one. Used Topaz detail increasing fine detail and decreasing medium and large detail, then added some Topaz clean. Used a bit of Nik Color Effects polarizer, and applied blur to BG.

[denise ippolito]

Brendan, You did a great job with the filtering. Love their poses and the image really pops. I might decrease the amount of blur in the BG just slightly if I were to be really, really picky. Nice job. BTW-I really enjoyed Jules' interview of you. Van Morrison rocks!

[Anita Bower]

Lovely job! I like the placement of the two heads. The detail is lovely and wonderful job with the bg. Those eyes are magnificent!! Great job.
Question: how did you blur the bg without affecting the birds, especially along the edges?

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks Denise and Anita!

Denise, I couldn't decide about the blur on BG, kind of went back and forth experimenting.

Anita, for the blur I selected BG and created separate layer, applied Gaussian blur, then used soft eraser to remove any blur effect left on edges of birds.

[Indranil Sircar]

Beautiful composition, Brendan. I too like the pose and how the heads are placed. Beautiful background and nicely processed.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Beautifully done, Brendan. I love the composition

[Paul Lagasi]

Job well done, the eyes and head turns are lovely...

[Andrew McLachlan]

Very nice work on this one Brendan. I love it!