Fore and Aft Eagles

[Dr. WooD]

I'm totally new to CS2, but this is the best I could come up with. The day I took the shot was just after sunrise, and it was a foggy cloudy day. I took the shot from a boat, so focusing wasn't easy.

I think the pic came out pretty bad. It just doesn't look natural at all.

I doubt I'll ever get a chance to get a shot of two eagles striking a pose like that together in my lifetime. Any way to make it look more natural?

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d19/Wood420/B4.jpg

[wulf]

I think it is much improved. There a faint halo along the backs of the eagles which makes it look a touch oversharpened but I note the same thing on the original above. Is this the largest version you have of the shot? I don't think there is much more you can do on the image without getting into importing elements from other pictures; if you have a larger shot, then it might be possible to bring out some more detail and perhaps some recropping could be considered (instead of having the right hand third of the picture blank).

Wulf

[Dr. WooD]

The original is much larger. I wasn't sure it there was a size limit to posting pics. I guess I should do my homework before posting.

[Dr. WooD]

Here is a larger version of the original.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/155/437670827_d6a8eb4939_b.jpg

[jiminyClickit]

WooD,

Challenges are fun, but when you say "more natural," do you mean as you saw it, or as you wanted it to look?

This is PhotoDeluxe editting. PS should do far better, so there's hope. There's a good photo under the haze. A tree trunk might help.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/439423612/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/439423612_397feb8277.jpg" width="500" height="381" alt="Eagle2X" /></a>

[Dr. WooD]

[QUOTE=jiminyClickit;14370]WooD,

Challenges are fun, but when you say "more natural," do you mean as you saw it, or as you wanted it to look?

This is PhotoDeluxe editting. PS should do far better, so there's hope. There's a good photo under the haze. A tree trunk might help.




Damn Jimmy you nailed it. Thats the way I wanted it to come out. Looks 100% better than what I came up with. Mind sharing exactly what you did, or what I did wrong?

[mikem12188]

Beautiful work Jiminy:cool:

[jiminyClickit]

mikem12188,

Thanks. It's like digital taxidermy.

WooD,

That's indeed a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and it's worth the time to save. In the after that you posted, I didn't see anything wrong. On this monitor it looked as if that was as far as the original could be taken. But I never know until it's here and full of most of its original information, whether the feathers are defined, eye's visible, limb bark texture intact, etc.

Tail feathers were tough. So is describing steps I take to edit, trying to translate them into PhotoShop language, which is foreign to me. Concepts are similar, some function names are different. I have no keyboard assist like Cntrl + D this or that.

Basically, layering several times, I started by cropping to a position probably remembered from National Geographic or Flickr, and used Color Select to get all the sky deleted. Luckily it was nearly all one tone. Some of the tailfeathers got lost. If you Lasso (?) everything by hand, you can save all of birds.

What was left needed to be Lightened, Brightened, Contrasted, Sharpened (all in small increments to avoid adding too much noise).

This will make trimming the birds and branch accurately, much easier. Using Eraser, Clone and Smudge, I tried to create a believable edge to everything, referring often to the outline of dark original. If you put in enough time, yours will pass the Enlarge Test; mine is less sharp than it could be.

When your repair is finished, eyes Sharpened, limb trimmed, etc., and you've got a sky you like, drop the fix over the sky, move it around until it looks right, tweak the Brighten-Lighten-Contrast trinity until the lighting matches, and enjoy.

See what I mean about language? No Levels, Curves etc., which probably make a world of difference, but aren't present in PhotoDeluxe. You will no doubt end up with at least an 8 x 10 to be proud of, and a preserved memory.

If anything isn't clear, I can try to help and most DPSers seem to be PSers as well, so much assistance is a post away.

Good luck on a great shot.

[Dr. WooD]

Your da man Jimmy. I'm going to redo the pic when I get time. I think what I did with PS was used the magic wand to select the dead sky, then inverted it, and painted the whole sky area a light blue. Then I went outside, and took a picture of the sky here at home. I had to wait for hours for a cloud to come by. Then I reselected the eagles with the magic wand, and moved them over the pic of the sky. I think I got a little crazy with the curves, which made them come out too sharp.

If I can come close to what you did I'll be a happy camper.

Gonna be a while before I can get around to working on them.......got a couple new toys coming middle of next week.:D :cool:

Thanks again for your help.

[Griggs]

Wow, I had to go back and see if that was the same picture. I thought maybe you found a pic of two eagles in a similar position! Nice work!

[jiminyClickit]

Griggs, Thank you

That's Adobe PhotoDeluxe, HyperPen graphic tablet and pen, my eyes and hands. Plus a photograph by WooD that still had a lot of information it. And I really enjoy the process

[kunaldaswani]

WooD,

Challenges are fun, but when you say "more natural," do you mean as you saw it, or as you wanted it to look?

This is PhotoDeluxe editting. PS should do far better, so there's hope. There's a good photo under the haze. A tree trunk might help.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47146451@N00/439423612/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/439423612_397feb8277.jpg" width="500" height="381" alt="Eagle2X" /></a>

Jiminy..... WOW!

http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/6389/jawdrop7rg.gif

[jiminyClickit]

kunaldaswani,

That's maybe my all-time favorite smiley-face emoticon! Thanks for WOW! Still, Adobe should get about 90% of that . . . wooo, Adobe!