The Fawn

canonrebel · Apr 17, 2004

Spring comes to the North Coast

wwjoeld · Apr 18, 2004

looks way too fake for me

Digital Matt · Apr 18, 2004

It sure does look fake. What did you do to this image?

Mr.ReDEyE · Apr 18, 2004

yeah it looks like somekind of bambi cartoon......i think you should leave it the way it looked when you took it.....it really is a nice shot.....

c0ntr0lz · Apr 18, 2004

that what i said about but i was waiting to see if others saw it
the lighting is way off

canonrebel · Apr 18, 2004

Hey fellas,

I didn't know the submissions were supposed to be un-retouched. Please accept my apology. I am truely sorry for the PhotoShopped pics.

I snapped all three pics, but not at the same time as the montage suggests.

Once again, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Please don't giveup on me--I really like this forum and I can contribute a lot.

Yours truely,
The Rebel

wwjoeld · Apr 18, 2004

hey i think the photo is good, dont give up on photoshop, you can do great things with stuff in photoshop.

I did not mean to be so critical, it just does look fake(after a second glance though)

maybe soon you will be able to make it look real, just keep on pushing

i want to see some more photoshop stuff, i never see any of it one here anyways, its a nice change..

drdan · Apr 19, 2004

What do you mean you never see any photoshop stuff? I thought most of the pictures here had been tweaked at least a little with PS or an equivalent.

Do you mean the obviously fake pictures created with PS?

drlynn · Apr 19, 2004

Nice try, Rebel, and a good idea.

The main problem is that the lighting doesn't match. The sun is coming down full on the meadow, but the doe looks more backlit.
Also, the masking on the fawn kinda makes it look like part of his neck is missing.

It is difficult to make lighting match in photoshop. It's best if your source pics all match. In fact, that's over half of the battle.

The other thing is to soften the edges of the deer with the blur tool, or better still by changing the opacity of your mask around the edges. The hard edges make the deer stand out from the background.

wwjoeld · Apr 19, 2004

i mean the artsy photoshop cut and paste stuff, i know mostly everyone tweaks there photos with it

canonrebel · Apr 19, 2004

Hi drlynn,
Thank you very much for the suggestions.

The main problem is that the lighting doesn't match. The sun is coming down full on the meadow, but the doe looks more backlit.
Also, the masking on the fawn kinda makes it look like part of his neck is missing.

Actually, the background was captured on an overcast day with no shadows. The Doe was (as I recall) backlit. I did a gradual blur on the background to enhance depth of field in order not to detract from the subjects. I deliberately sharpened the subjects so that they would standout more from the background. I covered the fawn with the grass in an effort to suggest camaflouge.

I can see that I haven't yet learned how to look at what I'm seeing. But thanks to people such as yourself who are generous with their help, I'll get there. After all, genious is mostly continued effort.

The Rebel

drlynn · Apr 19, 2004

Rebel,
Try this tutorial out for size:

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161017

This guy does the type of thing you're trying to do very well.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me here, and I'll help all I can.