Sacred Ibis - Transition

[John_Nevill]

Its my first time out with the 1DMarkIIN and caught this, this afternoon.



I really wasn't happy with the portrait layout, the cluttered background, "shot thru fence" milkiness and the somewhat cool colours. So I recropped it to fit an a4 landscape print, adjusted the black point level, and gave it some warmth.



I also darkened the background, but failed miserably in disguising the fence. Any tips? I've tried a selective Guassian blur but it looks unnatural.

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks John for a really useful post.

A fast response to get the picture, a notation of the issues of cropping and background. Several pictures, but needed.

I would wonder whether a square crop might work better? Have you considered that? An additonal challange is the isolation of the head. Here the background could, instead, be perhaps lighter.

So is this image available for download and how would you like to take it further?

Asher

[Don Cohen]

Hi John,

Thanks for the post, and challenge!

I think your instincts are right on the money in terms of cropping differently from the original shot, and your other adjustments help bring out the best of this image. The crop actually looks pretty good to me. The setting and lighting are definitely stacked against you, but many times, you just do what you can with the circumstances you're facing.

You've identified one of the problems here - the fence screen pattern in the background. The other thing that caught me eye was the dark, shadowed appearance of the bird's head. Fill-flash would definitely help in a shot like this, so keep that in mind for the future.

I copied your image into PSCS2, and played around with it. To deal with the fenced background, I "defocused" it using a program called Focus Magic. I have a trial version of it, and thought this would be a good test case. You can probably get very similar results using Gaussian Blur.

In any case, I created a separate layer with the blur added, and then using the eraser with a small, soft 'brush' (I use a Wacom pen/tablet), I painted in the areas I wanted blurred. As you point out, too much can be a problem. And I used the levels tool to lighten the bird's head and neck, although there wasn't a lot to work with there, and again painted in just that area, leaving the rest of the image untouched.

Here is the result:



It's a quick effort, starting with the downsampled image you posted. With the original file and more time, a better result could be achieved, but hopefully this is enough to give you some ideas on what direction to go, and how to get there.

In re-reading your post, I wasn't sure if you wanted to blur and eliminate the vertical fence posts, rather than the screening. If so, that would be a major challenge; do-able, but with considerable effort, and of questionable value. And it would represent a pretty major alteration of the original scene.

Thoughts?

[John_Nevill]

Thanks Asher / Don,

I like the idea of a squarer crop, possibly adding foreground rather than background.

Don, the blur effect works well and I will definitely have another go at this. Yes It was the background screen I wanted to disguise

Fill-in flash is something that I need to feel more comfortable with, especially flash / ambient ratios, as I tend to ghost images by using too much flash.

In this instance, the shot was taken through a fence, I think that flash may of added brighter OOF banding to the foregroung screen, which may have dropped the overall contrast. Tricky one.

Great job on lightening the bird's head, I never thought of that, the contrast against the background makes it stand out better, perhaps I should have kept the background lighter.

Thanks again for the "food for thought" and practical improvement tips. I've definitely learnt something today!

[Asher Kelman]

John,

I'm wondering whether you might look at a simple background swop with an indistinct misty light grey background in the center behind the head. If it looks good, then perhaps all you have to do is hunt for something real like it that fits in, blur and insert.

Asher