Wood duck


Posted by Jerry Merrell on Mon Nov 24, 2003 4:56 pm

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This is my first post and one of the first images I took after I switched to digital last August. This wood duck was photographed a few blocks from my home from my car. D1x 600f4 1/1000 f5.6 ambient light. Being a novice with PS I removed a tiny bit of debris from the water and cropped about 15%. I also bumped up the saturation a bit. I was not sure whether I should crop this more tightly or leave the water which reflected the blue late-afternoon sky. I welcome any and all comments.
Jerry Merrell


Last edited by Jerry Merrell on Mon Nov 24, 2003 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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by E.J. Peiker on Mon Nov 24, 2003 6:12 pm
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A beautiful duck and a very nice photo. I think pulling back on the cyan saturation a bit would make it look a bit more natural.
 

by Ken Newcombe on Mon Nov 24, 2003 6:43 pm
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A nice Wood duck, and reflection. Love the water drop. Cut the saturation, adjust the gamma a bit to put some detail in the black, rotate right a bit to level the water and sharpen a bit more.
 

by Alan Murphy on Mon Nov 24, 2003 8:37 pm
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Nice shot Jerry.
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by Bill Whala on Mon Nov 24, 2003 8:43 pm
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Welcome to NatureScapes, Jerry. You started off with one of my favorite ducks. I agree with the others that the cyan channel is a little over saturated but that's an easy fix. I love the falling drop of water and the pose.

Again, welcome. I look forward to your continued participation.
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by Mike Wilson on Mon Nov 24, 2003 8:49 pm
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Nice color and water texture/ripples. Welcome and I hope to see more of your gorgeous duck shots.
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by Jim Urbach on Mon Nov 24, 2003 9:16 pm
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Jerry,

The ripples, pose and reflection and falling drop from the beak are great, but he is far too saturated. A good first post.

Jim
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by LHays on Mon Nov 24, 2003 10:01 pm
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One of my favorite ducks....and one I don't have a shot of. Excellent image....just cut the saturation a little. You certainly have a great start with your posts.
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by AlexC on Mon Nov 24, 2003 10:34 pm
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Lovely duck and a great pose!!, Congrats!! 8)
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by Jerry Merrell on Tue Nov 25, 2003 8:31 am
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I appreciate all the comments. I just started learning PS about 3 weeks ago and have been doing all my PS work on a laptop. I did not realize how blue the saturation had become until I saw the image on a better monitor after it was posted. The transition from velvia to pixels has been more difficult than I anticipated. A little bit of rotation seemed to also improve the image.

I tried to get more detail out of the blacks by raising the lower left segment of the curves bar or the levels control and finally decided the curves adjustment worked better. I would appreciate comments about this process. Thanks.
Jerry Merrell
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:58 am
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Much better but you over rotated it. Draw a line from the tip of the bill to the reflected tip and you will see that the line is not vertical - if it were perfectly level it would be.

Here is an easy trick to perfectly level any reflection shot. Select the Measure Tool (click and hold on the eye dropper and it will pop up - it looks like a ruler) then draw a line from tip to tip (or if a landscape photo, along the horizon - basically any line that should be either vertical or horizontal) and the select Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary - the correct amount of rotation will already be entered in the box for you. Click on OK and the photo will be level.
 

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