Remove the birds?

Hi,

I took this shot of a passing snow squall last fall - and only after I took a hard look at it, did I realize that a flock of birds was passing by. Here's the question - I could remove the birds using the "spot remover" in Lightroom, but should I? I kinda see them as an "Easter egg" - you think there's a spot on the pic, then look closer and discover birds..

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I wouldn't, they add depth and some sort of sense of scale.

I think they add to the image. You can quickly see they are birds and not spots. IMO they add some more depth to the photo.

Larry

When you shot the snow squall you just missed the birds.

Whenever I shoot a scene like this I prefer birds in the frame. They add interest and scale.

Thanks for the comments - I guess the birds get to stay.. In the original, the birds are harder to see - this crop is about half of the original. Getting birds in the picture is easy - they go by twice a day, morning and evening - buzzards on the windward side and crows on the leeward - those are buzzards.

I like the birds.

My answer: No way!

I like the birds too. I'd leave em.

Leave the birds, lose the very brightest top of the photo

They look vuneralble, next to natures masive power, I would leave'em

Good picture

d

Like the others, I really like what the birds add to the scene. Nice shot!

OK, I hear ya - the birds are IN!

Thanks to all for your kind words and other suggestions - I'll work on this some more, and be sure to leave the birds alone..

I had this issue in a sunset shot about a year ago. I think "it depends". As long as the birds are reasonably sharp, I say leave them in. In my case they were all fuzzy and blurry to the point that it wasn't obvious it was a bird, so I cloned them out, and was happier with that result.

Photoguy, I agree - in fact, I am going to remove a number of tiny smudge-dots from that pic anyway - I think most of 'em are snowflakes, but I might clip out a fuzzy bird or two. I'll leave the clear ones, tho.
One of the other pics I took that afternoon had loads of snowflakes in it, and I had removed most of them, which helped a lot - then I started on this one, and realized that they were birds, not snowflakes. What is interesting is that between some noise reduction and a bit of sharpening (and the crop), they are now much more clearly birds than in the original.