Portrait of a Sandhill Crane

[Brownbear]

SS 1/250 f/8 ISO 250 Focal length 300 mm

The Crane landed in front of a car in front of me.


As photographed...



An attempt at Bird Art...

I used Levels to darken the background only. No matter how hard I try I can't select around the fine feathers on the top of the birds head so they are lost to the black background.



Does the Black Background work, or not? Thank you.

[Mike Buckley]

I prefer the original background for several reasons.

[mugge]

I prefer 'as photographed' it is a nice study... with the black background it is merely a bird's head
Ole

[IzzieK]

I like the original one, Christina...with the black background it is too heady, pun not intended. If this is one of Manfred's shot, I would say too technical. At least with #1 the bird has more personality. I wouldn't mind a mug shot that good...LOL

[chauncey]

Christina...I like the shot and, I do hope that you haven't cropped it much. Don't recall your PP software?
Were it mine, I would swap out a background with something more in tune to a natural milieu.
Is it worth the work, therein lies the rub...are you gonna print it, how big???

[Shadowman]

Nice capture and edit.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike, Ole, Izzie, Chauncey and John for sharing your preference and Izzie for your honest feedback. I've shared with friends and family and the preference for the original shot is indeed unanimous.

One of my goals is to learn to create artsy bird images, images that are obviously not real but pretty. In hindsight just darkening a background is not enough.

Mike... Would you mind sharing your reasons. Is it that I did a poor job selecting/blending around the bird? I've seen bird images of Chauncey's with a black background that work beautifully. Any insights to share as to why this doesn't work?

Chauncey... I have Lightroom and Photoshop CC. The image is not cropped, and not a printer for me, unless I can create an artsy image of it. I'm funny about nature images and I wouldn't feel right about swapping the background, unless it is an obviously unreal artsy image presented as such. That said I am going to try something else with this image and will share if I manage it.

[Geoff F]

I would definitely edit the original, Christina, to darken those distracting background areas.

Which is best, probably depends on the image use. The edit certainly brings out the colour and texture without any distraction.

[Mike Buckley]

My reasons have to do with the numerous details about the composition of the background itself and how that composition works so well with the subject. The most blatant example is how the beak "pierces" the round dark area in the background.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Christina I prefer your original too because it looks more natural to me.

[chauncey]

Christina, when I make selections it is not a one step process and use refine edge.
Refine edge is good but not up to my anal retentive personality.
More often than not I go into the quick mask mode at 200-500% and use a brush sized to 1-3 pixels.

Prior to that, I'm a fan of the color range command and use that after doing the following>
duplicate the image>add a bunch of adjustment layers to accentuate the various colors and luminosity>
use color range to select the various colors and whatnot> save each selection and later combine as
necessary. Once the selections are made, you can dispose of all the funky adjustment layers.

I've seen bird images of Chauncey's with a black background that work beautifully

This statement humbled more than you can imagine...Thank You.

[Rebel]

Nice shot, definitely prefer the original background.

[Brownbear]

Thank you to all.

Geoff, I tried your suggestion and while it did make the background a little less distracting the resulting colours didn't work for me but I will keep in mind for future.

Chauncey - Thank you for sharing. I tried a white background with the intent to place a little bird on the end of the Crane's beak but at this point in time it is just beyond my post-processing skills to do well.

Binnur and Matt... I too, prefer the original although at the time I was of the mind that the black background made for a dramatic photo. This image is a great example of a distracting background even if it is blurred by changing ones position.

Mike... LOL... The bird's beak is piercing the wheel of the car.

[Otavio]

Hi, Christina. Very nice image. I prefer the original shot.

Reason: Although it was certainly a valuable exercise, the black background, somehow, does not look natural. I suspect it could work better, though, if you use a "low key approach", I mean, everything would be "darker", not only the background. Just my humble opinion.

Anyway, the shot is great, with high level of details. Very well executed!

Regards,

[Brownbear]

Hi Otavio,

Thank you for taking the time to comment and to advise.

You just saved the world from viewing a hot pink swan. After I read your comment I thought I would try a low key approach on the Crane, and I think it works better than a black background.

This is just a very quick edit. I need to decide how dark/grey the Crane should be and also to refine the blending.




Thanks for the idea!

Hi, Christina. Very nice image. I prefer the original shot.

Reason: Although it was certainly a valuable exercise, the black background, somehow, does not look natural. I suspect it could work better, though, if you use a "low key approach", I mean, everything would be "darker", not only the background. Just my humble opinion.

Anyway, the shot is great, with high level of details. Very well executed!

Regards,

[Rita]

Christina, if you want to learn to change a background and keep the fine detail (feathers, hair etc) there is a utube video on
how to change a background and replace it with another done by tutorvid.com. I have tried this system and it is quit easy
to do. Hope this helps.

[kaneohebud]

Christina:
I like your original photo the best. The background is nicely blurred and the bird details, i.e. feathers, eye, beak are all crisp. I wouldn't mess with success.

[Teton Chuck]

Christina, I like number one the best. Nice detail.

[Bobobird]

WOW
to #1.

I have been wanting to get these for a while but no luck so far. Great you had the camera with you.

[Loose Canon]

Hi Christina!

Great shot of the Sandhill!

So as long as you are messing with backgrounds why stop with just a solid color? Might as well keep going since you are on a roll! Might come in handy someday with what you are looking to do.

Here are two more colors added to your black BG. I’m not a huge fan of the color scheme here but just as a quickie example.

Sampled a dark reddish brown color from the bird and a darker shade of the eye color and added to your black for this:

Got a bit of banding I had to deal with using a small .jpg but could be avoided with a full file.

Anyway, just a Theory!