Young Starling

[BrentC]

Not too happy with the bg on these. These were back lit so the sky was blown big time. Couldn't find an edit I was pleased with. If anybody has suggestions.

1.

Young female European Starling by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

2.

Young female European Starling by Brent Cameron, on Flickr

 

[Derrel]

Nice pictures!

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Beautiful colors, especially #1, Brent. Did you try dehazing to bring out some texture and contrast in the sky?

 

[Jeff G]

First shot is my favorite, both are very nice.

 

[BrentC]

Nice pictures!

Thanks Derrel.

 

[BrentC]

Beautiful colors, especially #1, Brent. Did you try dehazing to bring out some texture and contrast in the sky?

Thanks Dean. I didn't like what dehazing did to the clouds. I played around a bit more. Maybe went to much on the sky?

Here is what I had to work with. This is Raw with camera profile applied. No edits.

And here is after my latest edit. Too much on the sky?

 

[BrentC]

First shot is my favorite, both are very nice.

Thanks Jeff.

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

Your edit looks better to me than the sooc.

 

[Jeff15]

Very nice shooting...

 

[BrentC]

Very nice shooting...

Thanks Jeff

 

[bulldurham]

I didn't scroll down to the SOOC so just worked with your first image. There are three keys to making a composited image: the first is making sure the lighting angles match and the second is to make clean selections, and lastly try to equalize the tonal properties of each image into one. I use Photoshop's Quick Selection tool then use the Select and Mask editor to refine the selection.

I randomly picked a sky from some stock images I keep of skies and clouds for this very reason.

 

[jcdeboever]

sweet pics. you could always convert them to black and white.

 

[BrentC]

I didn't scroll down to the SOOC so just worked with your first image. There are three keys to making a composited image: the first is making sure the lighting angles match and the second is to make clean selections, and lastly try to equalize the tonal properties of each image into one. I use Photoshop's Quick Selection tool then use the Select and Mask editor to refine the selection.

I randomly picked a sky from some stock images I keep of skies and clouds for this very reason.

View attachment 161450

I know I could do a composite but I was just trying to recover from the highlights and manipulate the actual shot, and did a poor job. One day I will have to start taking shots of skies to use as backgrounds for these types of images, much easier.

By the way like your crop much better.

 

[BrentC]

sweet pics. you could always convert them to black and white.

Thanks JC. I always forget about trying images in B&W. I'll give it a try tonight.

 

[bulldurham]

Just for grins and giggles, I played with the one you posted as SOOC....and it is just dinking around. Now that it has migrated from PS to the internet, me thinks a bit too light.