Holy Cow!

[DanielLane]

So I spent the day yesterday photographing cows and the Paniolos (cowboys) that herd them up. My wife is writing an article about them for a local paper and I was brought on to take the photos.

They had just gotten all of the brood cows and the calves rounded up into a pen to check their brands and assess general health and all that. I was standing up on the back of a truck to get a few shots of the herd from above.

I really liked this particular shot specifically because of the one cow loudly mooing at us in irritation. The only problem was all of the flies. They weren't so bad when all the cows were out in the pasture, but once they were all penned up and in close quarters, the local fly population converged into a nightmarish cloud. That meant that the shot could stay, but the flies had to go. And there were a lot of flies in the image!

So here it is. The most extensive use of the patch tool I have ever done. The removal of about a million flies! All done with the patch tool. The size of the images on here doesn't let you see really how many there were as well as the full size raw image, but you can still see in the before shot that it was a crap-ton of them. One hour and 20 minutes later, no more flies!

BEFORE


AFTER


And darn it! right after posting this, I saw that I missed 3 flies! grrr... back into edit I go...

[pkd14u]

Wow! That is a fantastic edit! I would be hard pressed to find those three missed flies.

[Hill Country Hack]

It's like Where's Waldo. I found one.

[DanielLane]

Lol, thanks guys. Yeah, it is like Where's Waldo! I have corrected it on the master for the paper, but I'll leave the flies on this post so people can play "Where's the Fly".

[FireDawg]

I like both versions but I actually almost like the first better. It adds to the mayham of thier little cow party

[windrider86]

Holy cow is right. I commend you on your patience!

[Craftymum]

Found 2 of the 3 flys.
I really like both before and after, I like the before as it adds a little more to the cows story, (flies and cows go hand in hand) and maybe just removing flys from the mooing one and brightening up like in the after would be all it needed. But I I also like the after for the brightness and how clean it is without the flies.
The composition is excellent

[TNH]

Wow, wow, wow! Great edit!! I don't have the patience to do that... so congratulations to you for having enough patience to do that! It looks fantastic!