Critique Please: Post Processing

[pyzik]

Went to the zoo with the little one for Fathers Day.
These two elephants were giving a good show but the darn fencing was right in the way the entire time.

I chose the shot I thought would be easiest to "photoshop" out the cables. Not really what I thought was the "best" shot thought.

I am currently just using pixlr, since it's free to do my editing. Just looking for feed back on how well I did at getting rid of the cables. Did I leave patterning of the elephants skin?

Thanks!


Elephants Original by David Pyzik, on Flickr


Elephants Shopped by David Pyzik, on Flickr

 

[gckless]

It's pretty good. I wouldn't be able to tell there was a fence there before if I didn't already know. However, now that I know, I think the ridge on the trunk of the elephant on the left where the fence was before stands out a little.

Don't mean to offend, but I also kinda like it a little softer, like in between your two posted photos. Nicely done overall though.

 

[pyzik]

It's pretty good. I wouldn't be able to tell there was a fence there before if I didn't already know. However, now that I know, I think the ridge on the trunk of the elephant on the left where the fence was before stands out a little.

Don't mean to offend, but I also kinda like it a little softer, like in between your two posted photos. Nicely done overall though.

Thanks for the tip on "softening" the photo. I've been told before I sharpen them too much. I'll start softening them a tad more.

That part of the trunk was the hardest part for me, too. At one point I was starting to make it worse so I stopped.