Yet another image from last Friday’s excursion.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
Anything.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
I’m a bit ambivalent about two issues with this image. I could pretty easily remove the wandering stem in the lower right-I already removed a couple of out of focus ones from the lower left. Also should the insects trapped in the spider webs and the beak be cleaned up?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Sony a6500, FE200-600 @ 463mm, beanbag on car window, f/8, 1/640, iso 3200, manual exposure. Processed in LR & PS CC. Noise reduction with Neat Image. As mentioned above, I cloned out some out of focus stems in the lower left and a very out of focus reed that went up through the bird’s tail. Taken November 20th at 11:35 am.
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Wonderful pose and setting with very nice detail! I love the color match between the bird and the reeds. Good job on the OOF reed through the tail. I would clean up the insects, as I can’t see enough of the webs to show clearly what they are.
Here’s my trick for clean cloning in very light or dark areas. Make a curves layer above all the others and pull the left end to the right. (Opposite for a dark BG.) You can then see the traces that didn’t get completely cleaned up, and it’s easy to touch them up while the curves layer is showing the detail. Then just delete the curve layer. I did it here and there are some smudges left. Probably not that visible but when things are printed you often see things like this, more commonly in dark areas.
Excellent pose and perch. Because this is high key, I would remove the insects in the spiderweb. They do tend to draw my eye and detract from the cleanliness of the image. I don’t have any problem at all with the reeds.
A really nice image of the sparrow. I would leave the twisty redd, remove spider web and the little dab on the beak. I think I can just see a bit of shade, very slight, just above tail. A really nice environmental shot.
Thanks for the comments. Here’s a version with the bugs and beak detritus removed. Thanks @Diane_Miller for the tip on clean-up. There was actually quite a bit that showed up using your technique.
@Dennis_Plank, there always is! I use that trick (which I must modestly claim to have figured out all by myself) every time I clone in light or dark areas, and when I’m cloning in a midtone area that has even a subtle gradient. (In that case pull in both ends of the curve.) It’s amazing what it will pick up.
Hi Dennis,
I love high key photography and this one is very nice. The lighting is very flat so some fill flash used in the field would be my only suggestion. Otherwise, with bug parts removed, the photo requires no other tweaks. Well done…Jim
