PS Challenge

Jim I'm at work now but will give it a go when I get home !!!! Neat!!!

Jim, the background is just so cluttered that I just got rid of it using the extract tool and then I selected the left wing with levels and brought it up a bit. Pretty tough to work on.

Beyond my PS skill level, Jim!

Hugh

Beat me to it Rob :roll: that is what I was thinking in doing

With that bg there is no way to present the bird !!!

Rob,s version is very dramatic. I'm not going to attempt it. it's a great shot Jim.

Why to change the reallity?
It looks great as it, maybe the BG is little bit to crouded, but this is the place that you took the picture...

I could not resist this challenge, though I should have had enough of fixing up other people's photos in the last two weeks on the job. But this one was for fun. I could not get much shadow detail out, but hand me a raw file and could have done better!
Here are the basics of what I did. Key was making a believable selection to work with, and for something like this I've never found a better way than to use the pen tool (believe me, I've tried) and make an editable path. Then select the path and soften the selection a bit by feathering a few pixels. Worked with the selection on layers. I reduced the contrast slightly and used a lens blur on the background -- this could be less or more to taste. I also decided to soften some of the stronger elements in the background and did that with the cloning tool set on lighten at maybe about 30%. The usual sharpening and stuff of course. It would all be better to have been done on the full size file of course, but you get the idea. So what do you think, Jim?

By the way -- nice flight shot.

I like Christina's version with the background OOF. The complete blue background is a tad extreme to me.
Very cool photo Jim. I was happy you lent me your Snail Kites last June.

Steve

Another vote for Christina's, excellent job..

Big Time Chris !!! Love it :) :)

I, too, vote for Christina's version. The bird is still a bit dark though on my monitor. Quite the challenge.

Jim, this is a very pleasing, dramatic shot to me and I don't mind your own retouched version with the background habitat. You captured a great moment and the detail, posture of the kite, etc. are great as they are.

Having said that, I can understand your desire to highlight the kite a lot more than the natural BG in the frame permits. I'd do it much like Christina's approach; indeed I just posted a Northern Cardinal that shows my similar shot at it with a different subject.

Great capture!

I tried both Rob and Christina's approach before I settled on my version. I wanted to come up with something like what Christina did, but I couldn't seem to get the edges looking right.

Christina,

I really like your version a lot. I am going to try again using your method. Perhaps I can duplicate what you did and save this image from the trash. Thanks! BTW: How long did it take you to do this? I know it was a lot of work, at least for me it would be.