Post your best bird shots!

[Joel Eade]

I processed a few images today from the Bosque ....

[Dave Throgmartin]

Here's one from near my bird feeder.

Canon 60D f/8 1/640 second ISO 160 using the 55-250 lens @ 250mm. The only PP was rotating and cropping.



Dave

[Steve U]

I hope it is a bird caller, because it looks like he has frightened all the birds and other shooters off.
Or is this a picture of the early bird/Bob?

[bob williams]

I hope it is a bird caller, because it looks like he has frightened all the birds and other shooters off.
Or is this a picture of the early bird/Bob?

If I recall correctly, I was trying to "sneak" up on a kestral in that tree behind me---It was Joel that scared off all of the Birds. Speaking of Joel, I have been practicing some of his PhotoShop Techniques and am starting to get the hang of it---The hardest part is devoloping a discerning eye. Here is what I did on the image below.

Opened in LR3
Cropped
adjusted clipped highlights and blacks
took the image into CS%
removed a distracting branch using Content Aware Fill----I really like this tool
Selected the the background using the magic wand
inverted the selection
Used refine edge on the bird
Created an adjustment layer and adjusted levels/curves
used unsharp mask at 500% and 0.2 pixel (ran three times), but still not sharp enough, so I used smart sharpen once--this might have been an error
inverted the selection again so the background was selected
Used Gaussein blur filter and noise reduction filter
Saved back in LR3
Posted to zenfolio.

I still think the bird is soft, but that is probably because I started with a soft image that was focused more on the body than the head.



What do you guys think??

Her is another one---almost the same process:

[Joel Eade]

I

I still think the bird is soft, but that is probably because I started with a soft image that was focused more on the body than the head.

I think you're right, it just looks a little out of focus, nothing wrong with the steps you applied IMHO.

[ddt0725]

Very nice, Bob!! Thanks for sharing your technique!

[Dave Throgmartin]

Joel & Bob,

Any chance you could post any of pics above prior to editing them? I'm curious how much improvement you made in PP versus the original picture.

Dave

[ddt0725]

Beautiful Joel! So, I assume you have applied the same technique to a certain degree as Bob on the flying birds?

[Joel Eade]

Beautiful Joel! So, I assume you have applied the same technique to a certain degree as Bob on the flying birds?

Thanks Denise, yes I did.

In general I do the following (more or less depending on if I think the image needs it)

1. Convert from RAW using ACR where I adjust color temp, exposure, recovery, blacks, clarity usually

2. Crop the image and remove any elements needed, dodge or burn any areas if needed (like brightening a bird's eye)

3. Very minimal noise reduction (if needed) on the entire image

4. Levels adjustment layer

5. Selective color adjustment layer or sometimes Nik Color Efex pro

6. Noise reduction, stronger this time, on the BG only

7. Sharpen the image to taste, usually using Topaz In Focus

8. Save a copy as 8 bit TIFF

9. Reduce size to 1000 pixels wide

10. Sharpen with USM at 500% 0.2 pixels 7 threshhold (I may do this 2 or 3 times, not always)

11. Save as jpeg, adjust quality level so image is less 250 kb in size.


These are my basic steps on almost all my images.

I pick out the best RAW images so that each step only requires small adjustments.

[Joel Eade]

Joel & Bob,

Any chance you could post any of pics above prior to editing them? I'm curious how much improvement you made in PP versus the original picture.

Dave

I shoot in RAW and the images would be too large ... if you want to see an jpeg converted straight from RAW and reduced in size I can do that.

Here is one....