Okay, folks; this is some processing that is totally new to me. I wanted desperately to save this photo, as these birds are on the Federal Endangered List, and they are extremely difficult to photograph. They usuall stay high in the canopy, and concealed behind branches and leaves. I was lucky to catch this guy out in the open, but the background was atrocious. I will detail the processing below. What I would really like to know is, is this pass or fail? Am I on the right track, or would you do something different? Thanks for all your thoughts and suggestions.
What technical feedback would you like if any? Any
What artistic feedback would you like if any? Any
Pertinent technical details or techniques: Canon 60D, Canon 70-300mm IS USM Zoom @ 260mm, f/6.7, 1/500 sec., ISO 1000, Hand Held. Processed in Canon DPP and PSE 12. The background was so busy, so I decided to blur it. I did so, then slowly brought the bird back into focus. Still, there were many bright spots, which I spent much time cloning. So, your opinion, please.
(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
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Creating something that is not there may not work to your satisfaction. The BG has many artifacts of blurring one apparent issue is that the perch suddenly disappears into blurriness. You need to re-assess the function of this photo. To me, if you go back to the RAW or original, the picture shows where this cuckoo lives. So leave the BG unaltered and now you need to separate the bird from the BG. One way is to darken most of the BG while maintaining the brightness of the bird. A simple vignette may work perfectly for this image. I would post the original file so that other reviewers can provide more guidance for post processing. I like the cuckoo, it looks fairly sharp so the photo has potential. You just have to put limits on the post proceeding to come up with a compromise between art and natural history observation. Go with observing natural history and you’ll be OK. Keep plugging away at it…
…Jim
I think I agree with Jim on this, Terry. Certainly the Cuckoo is plenty sharp enough for ID purposes which is what you want in a Natural History image. I doubt there’s any really good way to turn it into art. As Jim noted, the artifacts from processing are very evident. There are ways of blurring the background less obviously, but I haven’t used Photoshop Elements in a long time, so I’m not sure of the limitations. If you can do layers, I would select the parts you want to be sharp (bird and perch) and put them on a separate layer. That let’s you work on the background without worrying about the bird much. One limitation to that is that a lot of blur techniques will essentially enlarge the image of the bird in the background and create a halo effect. However, if you can select the bird and perch, you can also remove them from the background layer to eliminate that problem. When I do blur, I’ll put it on yet another layer where I can then adjust the opacity of it over an unblurred layer and try to keep the final look fairly subtle. As Jim noted, playing with the lighting works well to make the bird pop as does sharpening only the bird. Yet another technique is to desaturate the background a bit to make it less obtrusive. It’s all just a matter of playing.
@Jim_Zablotny, @Dennis_Plank. I hear ya guys. Thanks much for your input, gentlemen. I can do layers in Elements, so I’ll work on it from that angle. If I can come up with something decent, I’ll re-post it.
