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I took this picture of a Red Tail Hawk about a month ago. Although it's not a great picture, I really like the way I captured it just before landing. I have been pllaying around with it in photoshop trying to give it more punch, but my expectations exceed my experience. Although I think I have made major improvements on the original, I still think it has the potential of being even better. I'll post the original and my favorite edit here, but both(and others) can be viewed and magnified from the Picasa link below. If I could get some feedback and/or suggestions on how others would edit this pic, it would be greatly appreciated.

http://picasaweb.google.ca/lonestranger102/CS3Tests#

 

 

 

 

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

I think it's an awesome photo. I've started a Photoshop night class. I know there's a way you can delete the background elements,  in this case the tree and branches, so the focus is the subject. Kiwi is really an expert - ask his advice.

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"Watch the birdie."
Latest: Sage Thrasher, Ferruginous Hawk (Dark Morph).

Thanks for the compliment, luv2bird, and thanks for an idea that I had totally overlooked. I was focusing on making the bird stand out more and never even considered trying to make the background stand out less. Duh. That will be the direction I'll take when I take another stab at it.

As for seeking out Kiwi's advice, I am one step ahead of you there. I have used Kiwi's threads, tutorials, and personal assistance to help me along my learning curve. He's been very helpful, even when it's not me he's helping. It's a long, long, long, learning curve so I am sure I'll be seeking his help in one way or another all the way along it.

Thanks for the feedback, luv2bird, it's been enlightening. *s*

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

luv2bird:

I think it's an awesome photo. I've started a Photoshop night class. I know there's a way you can delete the background elements,  in this case the tree and branches, so the focus is the subject. Kiwi is really an expert - ask his advice.

Thank you for your vote of confidence luv2bird.

Background distractions can be removed from images. including this one but in order to this one would need to work on the unedited image as it came off the camera no alterations at all as one needs to be able to work with the most pixels that are available. If I had access to the original image and it's original size I would be able to say how I would go about the edits

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

thekiwi:

If I had access to the original image and it's original size I would be able to say how I would go about the edits

 

Thanks Kiwi, I just emailed you the original RAW file and look forward to your feedback.

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

did you guys come to an end result?  can you share?

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Latest Birds: Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Crissal Thrasher

Matt:

did you guys come to an end result?  can you share?

Here is what I suggested for the image

I am not quite sure just what it is that you want to with the image if you want to remove the background and replace it it is possible but would be very involved to do that. If you want to soley enhance what you have then I would suggest that that you crop to 800 x 600 px to isolate what you want to keep best to do that 100%. Use the shadows nad highlights filter to open up the shadows. Add a little sharpening that will boost the contrast do a layer copy and set that to a blending of softlight and set the opacity to around 40 to 50%  I would also do a saturation adjustment on the color blue and pull the blues back about 7%  that will pull out the blue color fringing out of the branches.

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My New Avatar is in memory of Nancy my darling wife of 10 years who passed away on Monday November the 16th 2009 after an illness

My photo gallery http://thekiwi.org/photography/index.php

Here's a couple of different results. The first is Kiwi's edits as described above, and the second one was my attempt at getting a little more involved.

 

 

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102

Still experimenting and this is the latest results.

 

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My unorganized pictures can be viewed at

http://picasaweb.google.com/lonestranger102