Cooper's Hawk talking

Posted by dhkaiser on Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:41 pm

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I came across this female Cooper's Hawk a couple of days ago in a local park. She was perched near her nest from last season. Her mate was nearby but left before I could get the camera on him.

I have done some PS Elements work in the past, but only basic processing. This image has been modified a lot. Many small branches have been removed and the background changed from overcast to blue sky. Did some USM and levels as well. Ran Neat Image also, but am unsure that it did anything (sheepish grin).

I'm pretty new to image processing and so am eager to have constructive criticism. If you have a nit please tell me. But also please tell me, in detail, how to correct it. Thanks.

10D 500mm f4 IS, 1.4x TC, 1/750 @ f6.7, ISO 400, AI servo with Partial metering, tripod with Wimberley head, 40% of original.

Dan

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by rbuss on Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:35 pm

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Looks like you're getting a lot of haloing from too heavy a hand with the USM. Look at the big branch and around the beak where it's most noticable. You can correct this with the clone tool but it's a huge pain in the yazoo and to be avoided if you can. Mmmmm so that's what layers and .psd are for. Great animal behavior and what's up with those feathers? Maybe that's what all the protest is about.
The sky replacement looks good enough to me but I've been roasted for that before in a camera club so who am I to say what's good there?

What program are you using to edit in?

Buzz
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by Dan Wolin on Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:38 pm

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I like the bird itself - the open beak is great as are the ruffled feathers. The angle is a little steep and I am not about the sky but you take what you can get sometimes.

Dan Wolin
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by Mike Wilson on Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:03 am

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Looks great here. More contrast for me but it doesn't need much. The steep angle is a small nit. This Coop really has some fantastic detail, well done.

Mike Wilson
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by E.J. Peiker on Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:12 am

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Cool bird but way too steep of an angle for my taste. In a situation like this backing way up and using a 2x will render a better photo IMHO.

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by KK Hui on Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:21 am

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You PS work looks good, Dan!
The steep shooting angle is my nit as mentioned already ... :roll:

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by Juli Wilcox on Sun Jan 30, 2005 1:11 am

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Hi, it's a neat feat to get one of these. I agree that the angle is a bit steep, and you have received some good suggestions for the next opportunity. The bird is a bit gray. You might go to Curves, click the center eyedropper, set your RGB boxes each to 128, click OK, then move your curser back onto a portion of the image that is likely a natural midtone gray, click and see how the rest of the image "clears up". You might also consider reading Tim Grey's highly informative article on sharpening which is in the December archive at this site.

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by Vince Thomas on Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:40 am

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I'm not seeing the sharpening halos on my monitor, PS work looks good to me Dan... My only nit is the afore mentioned steep angle. By the way, I'd also go ahead and clone out the last small branch since you said that you had cloned out others.

Vince Thomas
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by dhkaiser on Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:44 am

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rbuss wrote:Looks like you're getting a lot of haloing from too heavy a hand with the USM. Look at the big branch and around the beak where it's most noticable. You can correct this with the clone tool but it's a huge pain in the yazoo and to be avoided if you can. Mmmmm so that's what layers and .psd are for. Great animal behavior and what's up with those feathers? Maybe that's what all the protest is about.
The sky replacement looks good enough to me but I've been roasted for that before in a camera club so who am I to say what's good there?

What program are you using to edit in?

Buzz,

Thank you for the input. I in fact had corrected with the clone tool. Guess not good enough. I need to investigate using layers more deeply. I am using PS Elements 3.

I am unsure of the ruffled feathers. Might have been the wind. I was to excited and busy to notice at the time. Thanks again!

Dan

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by dhkaiser on Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:49 am

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Dan, Mike, E.J. and KK,

I do not like the angle either, but had little choice. I feared the bird would leave at any moment and had my back up against a 10 ft fence. I will keep this in mind though, a very good point if I want my images to approach the quality of others here at NSN.

Thanks!

Dan

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by dhkaiser on Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:53 am

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Juli Wilcox wrote:Hi, it's a neat feat to get one of these. I agree that the angle is a bit steep, and you have received some good suggestions for the next opportunity. The bird is a bit gray. You might go to Curves, click the center eyedropper, set your RGB boxes each to 128, click OK, then move your curser back onto a portion of the image that is likely a natural midtone gray, click and see how the rest of the image "clears up". You might also consider reading Tim Grey's highly informative article on sharpening which is in the December archive at this site.

Juli,

Thank you so much. This is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for, how-to-details! I have printed out that article, and others, from the archive. Great resource! Thanks again. NSN is great!

Dan

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by dhkaiser on Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:59 am

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Vince Thomas wrote:I'm not seeing the sharpening halos on my monitor, PS work looks good to me Dan... My only nit is the afore mentioned steep angle. By the way, I'd also go ahead and clone out the last small branch since you said that you had cloned out others.

Vince,

I had already spent a lot of time fumbling around in Elements, learning that there are three ways to do every thing. I did not remove that last branch due to it being in front of the larger one. The cloning will be a lot more tricky I think. However now I think I will as it will be a good learning experience. I appreciate the feedback.

Dan

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by Vince Thomas on Sun Jan 30, 2005 12:48 pm

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Dan... with the craggy edge to the larger branch it should not be too hard to blend in a new edge taking it from a spot directly above or below the branch you want to clone out. Use the "fuzzy edge clone tool" and make it just slightly larger than the small branch and stamp it with the edge running thru the center of the tool... move it over the smaller branch maintaining the position of the tool relative to the edge of the larger branch. It might take a few attempts, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. Then downsize the tool for final cleanup on the larger branch. Have fun, I've found myself spending hours on this stuff at times!

Vince Thomas
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by Kristi Graham on Sun Jan 30, 2005 2:23 pm

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I'm posting this from my laptop and it looks pretty good to me. I know we usually try to shoot head on with most of our images, but I really like the steep angle here with the ruffled feathers as I think it adds some interesting depth to the image.

Kristi Beauchamp Graham
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by Chris Kayler on Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:28 pm