baby bird save

[Exposures]

I passed this little cutie the first time but just had to throw the car in reverse and go back. Luckily he was still there. Unfortunately I didn't get to stay as long as I wanted because it was a narrow drive and another car pulled up behind me.

I got to the computer only to realize I chopped his poor little feet off in the best picture. I'm very OCD about photo amputations, so I couldn't let it go. I found one that was more out of focus and merged the two together.


Before


After

Steps:
1. Opened both in raw and bumped up saturation and contrast just a bit, trying to match the color tones of both images.
2. Turned up the clarity as far as it would go; it really defined his feathers.
3. Copied the first image onto the one with feet and played with the placement until I got it where I liked it best.
4. There was an obvious line where the two photos merged. I cloned different areas at different levels to blend the the two.

The second set, I just lightened the exposure and increased the saturation and brightness a nudge.


Befofore


After

I welcome all critisisms! I'm still learning and critiques help a ton!

[wulf]

The result from the merging of the two pictures looks a bit like the result of using a tilt-shift type lens because of the way you have a patch of focus rather than a plane of focus.

Do you have a link to larger versions of the two source photos (and, ideally, a larger version of the result)? With these kind of jobs, it is about the fine details unless you only intend to use a very small version of the image.

Wulf