Blue Fronted Redstart after pp

[pinakibaidya]

This beautiful bird was taken with Panasonic FZ 200. Then it was post-processed as per advice i received in my previous posts. I know still there is one or two things may be i have missed. Now i expect you like it. Thanks for viewing in advance. C&C are always welcome.

[Bobobird]

Beautiful bird and well processed. Colours, sharpness all good.

One minor niggle - the background tree seems somewhat "noisy". Not that obvious in the lighter areas on the left.

[pinakibaidya]

Thanks Bobo for viewing. Yes i noticed that. I could not fix it as the bird also turns less sharp while applying noise reduction. Is there any other way to fix it?

[IzzieK]

Photoshop...or Gimp -- select the bird, reverse, the apply the blur.

[Wavelength]

Beautiful

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Pinaki, beautiful bird. Nice image, I may have cropped it tighter to get rid of some of the items that do not add to the image. I agree with Bobo regarding the noise. If you are using Lightroom to sharpen and control the noise first set the Radius (normally I use between 1.0-1.5 for birds), then adjust the Detail slider to either add sharpening or suppress the sharpening halo (below 25 suppresses the halo above adds to the sharpening). After the Radius and Detail is set then use the Amount slider to set the amount of sharpening necessary, think of it like a volume control. After the Amount is set then go to the Luminance slider to dampen the noise (this is done after the Detail and Amount because both make the noise more visible by sharpening it). As a last step set the Masking slider to control where and what will be sharpened (white gets sharpened, black no sharpening).

[Otavio]

A beautiful bird. Nice shot.

[Walj]

Hi Pinaki,

Nice shot but its leg was block by tree branch. The leaf in green is distracting. Noise in the background still appeared - should have cleaned it. You should blur the branch a little. Thanks for sharing.

[pinakibaidya]

Thank you all for viewing and nice comments. Unfortunately Joe,I do not have Lightroom. I usually process my image by Photoshop CS or by Photoscape or by both. If anyone well versed with Photoshop can give me some tips regarding blurring the background and reducing the noise without compromising sharpness i shall be obliged.

[ajohnw]

I think it's a great shot and don't find the noise objectionable. There are a few things you could do that should help. I don't use CS but assume that it does have these facilities available.

Working on the full sized image try any noise removal facilities your package has. These will blur things by varying amounts. The aim is to at least part kill the noise but still keeping detail in the bird even though it will be blurred. Then reduce the size of the shot. The idea is that both the noise reduction and the size reduction will reduce and hopefully fully remove the noise allowing the bird to be bought back up via sharpening. It's a tricky balance with lots of scope for variation in both the level of noise removal and size reduction. A blur brush can also be used on the noise locally maybe just to help it on it's way out of the shot or to mostly smear it out before using noise removal to smooth things out.

I noticed some slight sharpening hallows around parts of the bird. Again if a problem and other sharpening settings can't prevent it reduction is size is favourite. I have also used a blur brush but it's fiddly thing to do. Then comes a final reduction and just sufficient sharpening to bring the image back up. It just needs a level to just bring the detail back up at this stage. 2 stage sharpening is often useful.

If you use selection it's still best to work on the full sized image. I suspect in this case you would want to include the branch in the selection. Depends on the package but many will allow you to just work on the selection. Some people give rough figures for sharpening at this point but I prefer to view at 100% and watch the results in a critical area. It's crisping up again and can need a fair amount. I suspect the sharpening tutorial off the CC home page will give some ideas about this aspect. Then pan round the image to check nothings messed up.

Then invert the selection. You should be able to apply noise reduction or blur to that area then. Afraid I don't use either of the packages that you use but assume that CS can do this sort of thing.

I suspect it will have a blur brush as well. I would probably use that to tone down the leaf or maybe even try and clone it out.

I would clone out the bright area top right. The GIMP works by clicking on a pixel somewhere in an area suitable for use as source and then painting to the area that needs to be removed. Hard to explain but the area needed to fill the painted area is automatically copied across 1:1 along with any features etc.

Selection methods vary. Maybe colour maybe bezier curves maybe freehand. Try them all and see how you get on. The idea here is to do it with sufficient accuracy and smoothness so that any "errors" disappear when the shot is finally reduced. I see selection lines in shots from time to time and have had the problem myself and have no idea why. Reduction if they occur seems to be the only realistic method of getting rid of them.

One other note. I looked at another of your shots. Higher ISO and slower shutter speed. No noise but a different type of shot. I have always only switched my cameras on when I am taking shots and never just leave it on willy nilly. Olympus mention on some of their cameras that if used tor long periods the sensor may get hot and that this will increase noise levels. It will too. They suggest turning it off if this happens to allow it to cool. Might be worth bearing in mind.

I've used some of these techniques and others on shots from compacts for rather a long time. They can even work out on jpg's.

John
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[jamn4ex]

Hi Pinaki, Your absolutely right I do like it . Bird is beautiful. The leaf is nice object for bird to be looking at . The composition of this shot really makes it the winner it is though. I mean the strong branch bringing my eye back from the corner to the beautiful bird. The noise mentioned above doesn't take away from all the positives of this image. good work!