By the sea

gildco

The South Carolina coast offers a wonderful mix of bird species, besides having some of the most beautiful coastline in the U.S. I thought that you might enjoy these pictures.

Snowy Egret-partial

SnowyEgret--full

Pelican

Osprey Whisperer

I've never been to SC.....but those birds look awful familiar. Thanks for sharing them with us Gil.

Dick on Aruba

Great captures Gil.

I like the 1st the most.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.

gildco

Thanks, Dick and Birdman. Nice story about Smuggy, Dick. Good for you for taking in that forlorn-looking pup.

Harryb

good set Gil, good comp on that shots. Am I wrong or is that first snowy a bit hot?

gildco

Harryb wrote:

good set Gil, good comp on that shots. Am I wrong or is that first snowy a bit hot?

Thanks, Harry. By "hot," do you mean overexposed on the egret's head? Since I am new to Photoshop CS2, could you give me some advice about how you would "cool" it down? My inclination is to cut back on the EXPOSURE, or perhaps use CURVES.

Dixie

Gil, very nice shots.

Yes, you can cut back on the exposure a bit. Of course the rest of the shot will also get darker.

Assuming you shot in RAW, you can bring in one shot from RAW and adjust the exposure for the the top of the head and that area. Then bring in another from RAW and adjust for the rest of the area in the shot. Copy the second image brought in and paste it as a new layer over the first one adjusted for the head area.

Then make sure the top layer is active and use the eraser set to 50% flow and 25% opacity with the appropriately sized brush and gradually erase the head area from the top layer letting the bottom layer show through. Eventually you will start seeing the detail come through from the bottom layer. Once completed you only have to merge the two layers to have a completed photo.

I hope this helps a little.

Dixie

PS: You may also want to work with the back of the egret using the same two imports as well. The back should be just about the same as the head so once you get the head area correct the back should be as well. Just erase in the back area on the top layer also.

gildco

Valuable input, Dixie. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I do shoot in raw, and will follow your advice. (I just finished reading Bruce Fraser's book "Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop," and have learned some valuable techniques. However, I contine to use PSE-4 for the cataloging and tags feature, and have hesitated to transition to Adobe Bridge because of its different tags/labelling system.)

Thanks again.

Awais Yaqub

Great work
1st looks littel soft
loved them

Ric Grupe

I'll take #2! Nice one.

I think....if you didn't crop so tightly, it might be even more appealing. A little more room to the left of the bird would be what I would try. Of course if there's a crumpled bag of chips lying there, that may not be an option!

gildco

Thanks, Awais, for the input. I agree that shot #1 is a little soft. Thanks, too, Ric, for the input. As I look at pic #2, I agree that a little more background to the left of the egret would be appealing; it also would avoid the "dead-center-of-shot syndrome," typical of snap-shooters. Oh, so much to learn and so little time (at my age).