Jesus Lizard (Crop advice)

[matman4u]

These Jesus Lizards are very nervous and run away any time I get within 100 feet. Today I was lucky to see one in a tree and was able to get much closer. I have done some cropping of the images that I took, but am very interested what the members of this forum would do to enhance these images. Here are 2 originals:

[matman4u]

Here are my crops.

[Trina]

Hi Matt... I have never seen such a lizard, very interesting mouth on it :> I like the first picture, especially after I saw your crop, because the they eyes are much sharper... You might consider using the light levels which will lighten it up and bring its colors out more...I like your third crop because it shows down the lizards torso maybe you could crop the first picture that way. I can only imagine how it got its name lol

[Kris V]

Here are my crops.

For the first one: I would crop to include the whole joint (like in the 2nd one).
Cool Lizard!

[matman4u]

Thanks Kris and Trina.

My obstacle when cropping the first shot was that if I include the whole torso or the whole joint of the leg, I was afraid to have distracting leaves/branches in the background. I will play with it some more and repost.

The lizard is very unique. It is about 2 feet long including the tail. I see them often around my house even they are not native to my area and I have never seen one anywhere else.
It get it's name "Jesus Lizard" from the fact that they run on their hind legs and can actually RUN ON WATER.

Matt

[Trina]

Matt,
You might be able to clone out the distracting branch that goes behind him, and leave some of the branches on other side of him to balance it out...then you could easily crop down his torso some. You might also darken around the edges of the photo to make him stand out more:>

[Trina]

I downloaded your photo and played with it some..this is very pixelated.. but you can see kind of what I was thinking:>

[matman4u]

Nice! Thank you, This is exactly the type of advice that I was hoping that I could receive and learn from.

Matt