I was walking the shoreline with tripod and camera stalking a small solo Bonaparte’s Gull hunting and bobbing in the moving tide at sunset hoping to get it facing into some good light. I passed on the edge of about 100 standing Ring-bills who cautiously moved away and gave me preference. This one was cloaked in light, so I took a knee and fired a few quick shots, hoping I’d get adequate auto focus.
The background was pretty messy with beach debris and parts of other gulls so I used Lightroom’s new masking tools inverted the subject and used the “Blacks” slider to eliminate the unwanted stuff . I kind of liked the “studio” look. What do you think? Wish I had gotten the primaries more centered, but that is the edge of the image
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D7100, F6.3 @1/400, ISO 320, Nikkor Lens 200-500 @500 Tripod used as monopod.
Looks like you had lovely light and got a good image except for missing the tail, so the crop works for me. The featureless and blocked up BG just doesn’t work for me, and emphasizes the awkward foot position, with one blocked off.
Although it looks like it worked on the head (but not the feet and tail), as far as I can tell, the masking tools are not really meant for precise cutout selections but are like the TK masks, which are deliberately subtly feathered for use with adjustments that can have smoother blending.
It would be interesting to see a less extreme BG darkening, maybe with lower contrast but some detail, and the mask used to allow cloning of the more distracting BG elements.
Thanks for your input and comments, Diane, @Diane_Miller, they are always appreciated. I will go back and review the raw image and see if I can do a “non- studio” rendering with some beach/weed debris in the image. I don 't use TK luminosity masks, I’m pretty much Lightroom and just a few Photoshop things.
