(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
A really bright and colorful capture, John! I love the lighting and colors and the details are great in the large version. A very nice image!
Thanks Gary, Finding it hard to capture the regular cardinal without too much saturation or too low. Hard to strike a balance because of the intense red color.
Wayne
Hi Wayne, that’s a piercing downward look from the cardinal and nice pose overall. I like the background. I think toning down the perch to the left of the bird may improve the image slightly.
Details look good to me.
I like this image. It can be tough to create a nice photo of a bird that is looking away, but to Allen’s point, the intensity helps a lot here. Detail in the bird is very nice, and the background is interesting. Only suggestion is to run some noise reduction on just the background.
Hi Lyle, Thanks for the post. If possible could you expand on the process of employing noise reduction on the background. Do you use layers/masking to accomplish this? Appreciate any suggestions.
Wayne
Sure. I use Photoshop’s built-in noise reduction. To do so, you’ll need to use a “selection” to select either the background or the bird and the perch. If you select the background only, you can then go ahead and run noise reduction on it. If you select the bird and perch, you’ll have to invert the selection to the background, and then run noise reduction on it. How comfortable are you using selections in Photoshop?
One method I’ve found quick and easy is using PS’s automatic subject-selection feature. If you go to the “Select” menu, it has an option to choose “Subject.” PS generally does a pretty good job of selecting the things that are in focus, although you’ll probably need to fine-tune PS’s automatic selection.
Otherwise, I’ll use the “Quick Selection” tool in PS. It also has some automatic functionality. Using that tool, you just start selecting the thing you want selected in an image, and PS will automatically expand the selection to include things it thinks are similar. If it goes too far, you can bring it back in.
My method is usually to select the bird and perch (or whatever should be in focus). I’ll then right click and save the selection in case I need to use it again later. Next, while I have the bird selected, I’ll sharpen it using Smart Sharpen (Filter menu–>Sharpen–> Smart Sharpen). Then, I’ll right click and invert the selection and use Noise Reduction (Filter menu–>Noise–> Reduce Noise). Depending on the image, I’ll experiment with the settings in the Noise Reduction Filter (Strength, Preserve Details, Reduce Color Noise, Sharpen Details). The variables I generally change are the first three. I usually keep sharpen details at 0 or 1.
Feel free to reach back out with any questions.
Thanks Lyle, Your instructions are clear and concise. I hit the Select button by mistake and was surprised to see how it works. Now I can put it to use.
Thanks for taking your time to assist me.
Wayne
