Miscellaneous Birds

[Brownbear]

Some recent bird images...


Heron

I think I managed sharp focus while blurring the background and that I captured the morning light well.


[B]



Foggy Day Pigeon Landscape

A rather odd image but I like it for the overall scene.




Three Geese (yes, I'm still clipping wings)

I like the light and water droplets on the Geese. Should've used a smaller aperture to get the 3rd goose in sharper focus and while I try not to clip the wings it's something I'm still working on.



Four Geese

I think I managed fairly sharp focus on all four geese. I like the effect of the overexposed background as compared to the ocean in the first goose shot. However this image is almost B&W and the high iso used lessens the clarity so I'm not sure if it works.



C&C always appreciated.

1. Does anything look over or under processed. I'm working from raw photos and trying to get a feel for how I'm doing in post processing my own images.

2. What folks think of the 4 geese with the white background as I like the effect of exposing for the bird and blowing the background... I sharpened this one more than usual, upped the exposure a little more in PP to make the background whiter and I think I might of over processed this image a bit?

Thank you

[Bobobird]

All are good in their own way.

Processing is a personal taste thing and as long as things look ok, it is fine whatever you do.

Minor comment about #1 - you might want to lower the highlight spot on the left of the heron's left wing to bring out more of the feather detail which I am sure is still there.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Bobo.

Yes, I just want to make sure that I do not over-process images as I learn new things.

Thanks for the tip. Appreciated.

All are good in their own way.

Processing is a personal taste thing and as long as things look ok, it is fine whatever you do.

Minor comment about #1 - you might want to lower the highlight spot on the left of the heron's left wing to bring out more of the feather detail which I am sure is still there.

[jprzybyla]

Hello Christina, a couple things I see that I would do differently. Only me so take it for what it is worth. The first image of the Heron I would crop the top lower to eliminate the blue sky and railing. In the image with the Pigeon I would crop it more on the right eliminating all a short distance to the right of the hydrant. So the image would be the hydrant, the Pigeon and the man with the bicycle.

[Wavelength]

Excellent

[Brownbear]

Thank you Nandakumar, and thank you Joe..

Joe, your comments and advice are always truly appreciated. I like your suggestions and I will try them. I did have the pigeon photo cropped like that at one moment and then hesitated to crop it. So thank you for sharing... it means I saw that crop.

[jcuknz]

The trouble Christina is that you are not cropping to make it look like the clipping was intentional composition instead of a mistake Or editing to correct the problem as I showed you ... perhaps you are too busy with the camera to practice editing

I agree with Joe but go further and suggest a flipping horizontally of the image so the bird is on left third and heading right while the cyclist acts as a 'stop' to the left to right movement which is better than a right-to-left movement.

Whatever a great image you have there
A further 'play' comes to mind which is to copy and increase in size the bird by around 50%

[Brownbear]

Hi Photo Nut,

Thank you for your edit. I didn't work on this image as I'm still not sure about it, but I like your edit a lot. Thank you for showing me this... very interesting and effective.

Yes, I am still working on my editing skills, which includes a lengthy set of tutorials in LR and I've even been played with layers in Elements 9, just to understand the use of them. That said it is all at the very beginner level and I need lots of practice, and yes, I'm equally busy practicing with my camera.

There is no way I could increase the size of the bird but the idea is interesting and truly appreciated... Monster pigeon in flight... Right now I will stick with the basics and perhaps a year from now I will start exploring photographic art.

As always... Thank you.

[terrib]

Christina, I agree with Joe's suggested crop on #1 but I do really like the image. Great job!

[Brownbear]

Thank you for sharing Terry.. Good to know... Perhaps I will start sharing all my pigeon shots, NOT, at least until after my landscape exercise is finished...

All my best to you and your husband.

Christina, I agree with Joe's suggested crop on #1 but I do really like the image. Great job!

[jcuknz]

I recently got PSPx6 [and a moment ago it was updated to the 64-bit version whatever that does for us ] and one of the new tools is 'Smart Selection Brush' and I have been wondering how well it would work. The pigeon seemed a good test.Just by waving the mouse over the bird I got most of it selected with the bright area of the wing a second sweep ... You seem to just move the mouse roughly over the area to be selected. Only problem I didn't pick up its beak and that was a little tricky but I got there without the need for a layer mask.

Copying just the selected area and pasting as a new layer then resizing the new layer but not the basic picture and a merge to finish has this.... copying and working on a posted jpg is not ideal but it gives you the idea.

My reason for the size change is that the bird and cyclist seem much of a similar size so working from the idea that two things [ evens] is not good the resize turns it into a single plus something else [odds are good ]



The more I look at this the more I think it is one of your best I have seen.

[Brownbear]

Hi Photo Nut,

Thank you for sharing. I like your edit a lot, very creative and interesting and you've made it sound simple enough to do.

Thank you. I'm becoming more fond of this image.

I recently got PSPx6 [and a moment ago it was updated to the 64-bit version whatever that does for us ] and one of the new tools is 'Smart Selection Brush' and I have been wondering how well it would work. The pigeon seemed a good test.Just by waving the mouse over the bird I got most of it selected with the bright area of the wing a second sweep ... You seem to just move the mouse roughly over the area to be selected. Only problem I didn't pick up its beak and that was a little tricky but I got there without the need for a layer mask.

Copying just the selected area and pasting as a new layer then resizing the new layer but not the basic picture and a merge to finish has this.... copying and working on a posted jpg is not ideal but it gives you the idea.

My reason for the size change is that the bird and cyclist seem much of a similar size so working from the idea that two things [ evens] is not good the resize turns it into a single plus something else [odds are good ]



The more I look at this the more I think it is one of your best I have seen.