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John Harrison82293

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I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.

I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of hawks in the wild.



John R.
 
Did you shoot in RAW? If you did then check http://www.fredmiranda.com for tips on how to use 2 copies to recover the highlights (if they are still there).
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
--
Doug Walker
 
Thanks,

I know how to use curves but when the sky is already that whitish color from trying to shoot the bird correctly as possible there is no way to recover whats not there to begin with. I just used level to elevate the bird some.
I was just playing around shooting flowers so I didn't shoot in RAW.
John R.
 
Your subject actually seems to be in good shape...

How about selecting all the foreground elements with the magnetic lasso (or going hardcore with the pathing tool and making that a selection - I have better luck with this since you can easily modify the points on your path), then selecting the inverse and intentionally blur the background more to reduce those distracting elements?

Kind of a fake bokeh :)
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
--
-Karl
http://www.karlsphotos.com
 
One other option is to convert the file to Lab and use an inverted lightness channel as a mask. Then steepen the lightness channel in the darken areas to increase contrast.

Cheuk
Karl Weckstrom said:
How about selecting all the foreground elements with the magnetic
lasso (or going hardcore with the pathing tool and making that a
selection - I have better luck with this since you can easily
modify the points on your path), then selecting the inverse and
intentionally blur the background more to reduce those distracting
elements?

Kind of a fake bokeh :)
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
--
-Karl
http://www.karlsphotos.com
Click to expand...
 
John,

Probably the most often overlooked thing about accomplishing such as you ask for is that the image is treated as a whole and therefore curves, levels, etc. are applied to a whole.
A few simple suggestions for an image such as this:
Duplicate the layer
Set blend mode to multiply at around 50%
Use a medium soft edge brush and erase the hawk
Use Image-Adjust-Threshold at default
Apply a Gaussian blur of 10 to 20 pixels
Use curves bring the hilites down and even out the tonal background

The simple process of eliminating an area that you don't want to modify makes it much easier to work with.
HTH,
VG
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
 
John,

This is a quick touch up I've done.
More than the sky I thought the main subject (hawk) wasn't
popping out enough.

Let me know if you like it, I'll walk thru how I did it.

http://www.pbase.com/yr/retouched

-yr

---------------------------------------------------
VG said:
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
John Harrison said:
Thanks,
I know how to use curves but when the sky is already that whitish
color from trying to shoot the bird correctly as possible there is
no way to recover whats not there to begin with. I just used level
to elevate the bird some.
Click to expand...
If the problem is that the blue sky has been irretrievably blown out to white, you can fake it back to blue (or actually cyan) again by using a curve on the red channel only that keeps the curve linear for most of the range but fades down a little on the high end -- e.g. put control points at 0:0, 220:220, 235:230, and 255:240.
 
I'm not John, but I like it. Can you share with me? :)
yr said:
This is a quick touch up I've done.
More than the sky I thought the main subject (hawk) wasn't
popping out enough.

Let me know if you like it, I'll walk thru how I did it.

http://www.pbase.com/yr/retouched

-yr

---------------------------------------------------
yr said:
John Harrison said:
I shot this photo of a Hawk this morning with the d-60. I was able
to work my way close to the bird even though it was in the wild. It
was a beautiful blue sky but the bird was backlit. I was able to
take two shots with the on camera flash to get this. I lifted the
levels slightly but of course the bg is already burned out to begin
with. I burned a layer where the White sky was and changed opacity
on it but it still doen't look as good as I would like. This shot
is only vertically cropped and shot at max with a 28-138IS.
Any suggestions.
I would really like to save this shot as I don't get many shots of
hawks in the wild.



John R.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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