White-throated sparrow

[Richard Stern]

I was thinking about posting this as part of the Sparrow theme in the Avian forum, but decided to post it here, as I have a specific question. I already tidied this up by cloning and quick-masking away a lot of extraneous twigs and branches, especially at top left, but how do I remove the extensive oof brownish area that's in front of the branch and around the bird? I already did some Gaussian blurring, but still can't achieve a good background or sharp branch.

D7000, 300 f/4 AF-S + 1.7TC. Hand-held at 1/1250, f/9.0. ISO1600.


Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Richard, really pretty bird and a nice capture. It seems that the light was above and to the right, so the face and breast are a little dark. I love the pose, color rendition, and detail. I don't know of a way to remove oof fg elements other than having perfect areas that match to clone from. If you do find a way, I suggest that you package it and offer it for sale!

[John Chardine]

That's a tough retouch Richard. In theory I would mask off the bird and the main branch, then take a patch of blue sky and cover up the brown. You could clone as well. The OOF elements going over the main branch are a real problem. I might crop a little tighter to reduce the retouch job if that's how you decide to go.