Wetlands - Be gentle...

[jrdbrn]

I don't post much but I like this picture. I tried to "touch it up" but I am not very good. I am a bit of a noob :) I am accepting all comments and please if you critisize me, give me advise. I feel I may have over sharpened/colored it. I am a tad bit colour blind so anything looks good to me hehe

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3391/wallpaperzd7.jpg

[jrdbrn]

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/3360/wallpaperorigxo3.jpg

That is the original if someone wants to show me how it's done :)

[Robert_Lay]

It's way too blue.

Do a color correction!

The bird is too centered in the frame - should be more to the left, so that he is looking into the frame.

Notice that he has a tree growing out of his left eye! That could be avoided by simply moving a little to the left.

[jrdbrn]

It's way too blue.

Do a color correction!

The bird is too centered in the frame - should be more to the left, so that he is looking into the frame.

Notice that he has a tree growing out of his left eye! That could be avoided by simply moving a little to the left.

I may work on the coloring. I will wait till my fiance is around for second opinions when I am doing it.

I may start doing more wildlife photography to learn how to do the shots as there is an abundance where I live. I couldn't find any with the bird more to the left, but thanks for pointing that out. I never thought of that!

[smorter]

Be gentle? You can't learn if people are gentle with you :) so I'll be harsh
Colours look unnatural in your edited version like they were taken with some crappy P&S. There's too much of a blue or cyan tinge, looks like hue or saturation was overdone.

I like the original far better. Of course, different people have different preferences, but I think if you take the original, crop it so that it is slightly more tightly framed, clone out the distracting tree and some background stuff, and add a bit of sharpening, small exposure adjustment, touch of saturation. e.g.: Here's something I have done (by editing your original file):

[smorter]

ugh! ok looks crapper than I thought...can only upload a 150KB file so it's pretty compressed...ok if you forget about the noise which I couldn't see in Photoshop, that's sort of the effect I was looking for...cropping can be a bit tighter too

hmm...not sure why it turned out pretty bad, maybe cause I kept resaving to get it below 150KB. Anyway, I hope my comments still make sense despite my "edit" that didn't turn out too well

[jrdbrn]

ugh! ok looks crapper than I thought...can only upload a 150KB file so it's pretty compressed...ok if you forget about the noise which I couldn't see in Photoshop, that's sort of the effect I was looking for...cropping can be a bit tighter too

hmm...not sure why it turned out pretty bad, maybe cause I kept resaving to get it below 150KB. Anyway, I hope my comments still make sense despite my "edit" that didn't turn out too well

It's ok :) I get your drift. I will try and take out the tree.. shouldn't be too hard. I will wait till tomorrow to edit it some. I am getting tired and its looking worse lOL

[Bigbitt8706]

I like were you were going with your edit jrdbrn, but I do completely agree with Robert… it’s to blue, and a crop would help. This is what I got after and Auto Smart Fix, Equalization (it’s under filters> adjustments> equalize), a +20 replace color saturation (Enhance> adjust color> replace Color) on the sky, a 15% local contrast enhancement (In case you don't know how to do local contrast enhancement: In Photoshop, duplicate the background layer, set the blending mode of the duplicate to Luminosity and then use the Unsharp Mask filter on that layer. Your settings should be Amount 5-20%, Radius 30-100 pixels and a Threshold of 0.) A crop, and a 10% sharpen:
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii262/bigbitt8706/helpinsomekidoutedited2.jpg

Keep up the good work, i hope to see some more of your captures.

[LeuceDeuce]

I like the image, but agree it needs to be cropped, simplified and colour corrected. I boosted the contrast and gave a bit of a sharpening treatment.

[Atheist]

too much cooling filter

[ShotByTom]

Here is a very quick edit, really just did Auto Levels, Auto Color and cropped:

[jrdbrn]

too much cooling filter

Whats a cooling filter

I made it "cool" :D JOKE!

[kmorgan]

This is color corrected to remove the cast and rotated .5 degrees CW to level the horizon.

Kevin

[jrdbrn]

Looking at the original compared to my edited copy, I am now truely seeing how blue it is. I will look for tutorials later tonight on photo editing and will repost once I get a better copy :) I guess what I was trying to do was get the sky and water more blue rather than the greenish/brown and it affected more than the water/sky.

Thanks for all the comments!

[TheSonofDarwin]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y173/thesonofdarwin/bird-notmine.jpg

[Flo]

LD.super edit....thats the keeper.

[LeuceDeuce]

Thank you Gail, I can't help touching the images that I like :)

[ADAPTE]

Very nice picture, but IMHO the line that forms with the water and grass should have been higher or lower. It takes a bit from the bird.

[PETERSYMES]

I like the image, but agree it needs to be cropped, simplified and colour corrected. I boosted the contrast and gave a bit of a sharpening treatment.

Yep this is the edit for me, Nice one.
A question for Big Bitt.... Is that how you like you PP? not trying to be rude just curious.:D

[Bigbitt8706]

Yep this is the edit for me, Nice one.
A question for Big Bitt.... Is that how you like you PP? not trying to be rude just curious.:D


yeah i do, actually...
i still like what i did.

[PETERSYMES]

yeah i do, actually...
i still like what i did.

Thanks, i think it's great there are so many different ways of viewing the same thing.
Good luck to ya.

[opus13]

I thought I'd throw my lot into the party as well. when faced with an image with broad fields of constant tone (the sky and water, in this case) i like to add a gradient overlay for a pseudo-vignetting effect. i added a vertical grad for the sky and set to ~ 10% opacity, and then selected teh water and used the burn tool at ~5%. i threw in a little bit of sharpening (i think i overdid it a touch) and selective saturation boosts.

[envyr]

The compression messed it up a bit, but here is my take, done entirely in lightroom