Bald Eagle

BrentC · May 30, 2017

HavToNo said:
Fantastic shots Brent. I haven't been there since my kid was little. I live less than an hour away so I should get down there this summer.

I regret not taking my car through the safari. We had visiting family with us and the young one wanted to see the baboons. I wasn't going to take my car through that so we ended up going in their shuttles. Taking photos through their fingerprint and tinted glass made them all unacceptable. I probably have to turf all the ones taken on the safari which is a shame because I got a lot of great shot especially of the lions, white lions and giraffes among others. They are all faded colour and no sharpness. If I took my car I could roll the window down quickly to take my shots. The baboons were nasty as ever and all over the shuttle and other cars.

birdbonkers84 · May 31, 2017

BrentC said:
Can someone tell me if its possible to do a good job of cloning out the water barrel in picture #7 and have it look seamless with the oof grass in the BG? In #6 I did a quick and dirty clone out of the handlers leg on the left side. Its very noticeable and I don't know how to blend the BG in better. My PS skills are not very good, does someone know of a good tutorial specifically for that kind of editing?

It is possible, I did something like this on my Gannet Portrait, there was a massive white blurred out subject behind its head.

What I did in PS was using the Lasso tool, draw roughly round the area you want to remove, then got to Edit > Fill and make sure it's set to content-aware, this wont always completely remove everything, but it is a good start. I then made a new layer and started cloning the surround area over the white blob I wanted to remove via the new layer. Make sure the clone brush is feather too. I then zoomed into the Gannet head and rubbed out all the traces of clone on the gannet.

Another way you could try is copy the grassy area to the right and flipping it, then placing it on the left over the barrel, then zoom in a rub out any areas covering your eagle.

There is no quick way to doing this, but with a little care the result will look cool.

birdbonkers84 · May 31, 2017

I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS

BrentC · May 31, 2017

Coull3d said:
I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS

Thanks Mark. That looks pretty good. I did try myself with the fill and content-aware like I did in #6 but I was getting a real mess. Nothing close to what you have done. And never thought of copying the right side to the left. Also I have not really worked with layers which I really need to learn to do and from what I have seen it is critical to be able to use layers in PS. I think I need to spend a weekend going through video tutorials and try getting up to speed at least on the basics of PS. If I have time tonight I'll try to replicate what you have done.

birdbonkers84 · May 31, 2017

BrentC said:
Coull3d said:

I hope you don't mind, i took a screen grab of your eagle to quickly show you what I was talking about, only spent a few minutes on it using what I mentioned above, It's far from finished, but gives you an idea that it is possible in PS

Click to expand...

Thanks Mark. That looks pretty good. I did try myself with the fill and content-aware like I did in #6 but I was getting a real mess. Nothing close to what you have done. And never thought of copying the right side to the left. Also I have not really worked with layers which I really need to learn to do and from what I have seen it is critical to be able to use layers in PS. I think I need to spend a weekend going through video tutorials and try getting up to speed at least on the basics of PS. If I have time tonight I'll try to replicate what you have done.

As another level of blending you could lasso tool all of the background copy and paste it onto a new layer then add a gaussian blur to it so that the whole background has an even OOF look. Lots of trial and error involved, but with a little patience you'll find the look you are after.

I don't know of any specific tutorials for this kind of thing, but without sounding unhelpful I'm sure you'll find something on youtube