Early Birds (Page 2): Stilts fascinate me, but they're hard to photograph for many reasons. I wish they would allow me to get closer. Thanks for taking time to look and comment Gary.

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Gary Truchelut wrote:

Good images, really like the stilts.

Stilts fascinate me, but they're hard to photograph for many reasons. I wish they would allow me to get closer. Thanks for taking time to look and comment Gary.

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Rob48 wrote:

Good set, overall, Vicki. My favorite is the egret bif; too bad the wing got cut, but that happens. Other than that, the composition is spot on; the cropping on the stilts is well done. I put the egret flight through a little Photoshop, but I won't post it unless you give me permission; it involved some HDR adjustments, layer adjustments and cloning.

Thanks Rob. I would love to see what you've done, so please post.

Rob48 Loc: Portland, ME

vicksart wrote:

Stilts fascinate me, but they're hard to photograph for many reasons. I wish they would allow me to get closer. Thanks for taking time to look and comment Gary.

Ok, The first photo is a Photoshop reworking; in the second photo, I extrapolated the wing. If you want, I could go over the process.

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Rob48 wrote:

Ok, The first photo is a Photoshop reworking; in the second photo, I extrapolated the wing. If you want, I could go over the process.

You've got me curious about this amazing correction. I have an old version of Elements that a friend gave me, but I haven't learned how to use it. My editing software is somewhat more basic, and I use it for leveling, cropping, cloning, adjusting light, contrast, saturation, etc. If you want to take the time to explain what you've done, I'd appreciate it. It might also be helpful to others who are following this thread.

Thanks Rob.

Rob48 Loc: Portland, ME

vicksart wrote:

You've got me curious about this amazing correction. I have an old version of Elements that a friend gave me, but I haven't learned how to use it. My editing software is somewhat more basic, and I use it for leveling, cropping, cloning, adjusting light, contrast, saturation, etc. If you want to take the time to explain what you've done, I'd appreciate it. It might also be helpful to others who are following this thread.

Thanks Rob.

I'll try to work something up, Vicki.

Rob48 Loc: Portland, ME

vicksart wrote:

You've got me curious about this amazing correction. I have an old version of Elements that a friend gave me, but I haven't learned how to use it. My editing software is somewhat more basic, and I use it for leveling, cropping, cloning, adjusting light, contrast, saturation, etc. If you want to take the time to explain what you've done, I'd appreciate it. It might also be helpful to others who are following this thread.

Thanks Rob.

Here goes; I worked at recreating the image and came pretty close ( I also noticed that in one small area I committed one of the cardinal sins of cloning). I should have taken notes the first time; oh, well. The graphic explains the basic process, take note that I flattened the document after each step. I hope this can be of some help explaining what I did.

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Rob48 wrote:

Here goes; I worked at recreating the image and came pretty close ( I also noticed that in one small area I committed one of the cardinal sins of cloning). I should have taken notes the first time; oh, well. The graphic explains the basic process, take note that I flattened the document after each step. I hope this can be of some help explaining what I did.

Thanks. I appreciate your time and effort for putting all of this together. It looks like it's not too difficult if you have the program and are used to using the tools. I will save this and spend a little more time studying it and seeing if I can get some of these things to work.

Rob48 Loc: Portland, ME

vicksart wrote:

Thanks. I appreciate your time and effort for putting all of this together. It looks like it's not too difficult if you have the program and are used to using the tools. I will save this and spend a little more time studying it and seeing if I can get some of these things to work.

Me, too. This method is so very labor and time intensive; I only go this route once in a while. Instead, in shooting conditions like these, it seems best to work the angle and direction of the sun. I most always shoot in manual so I can work aperture and shutter speed independently, and I also work the exposure compensation settings as best I can. My worst ones have most often been when I tried to go beyond the effective focal range of my lens or the under/overexposure tolerance of my camera.

vicksart Loc: Novato, CA -earthquake country

Rob48 wrote:

Me, too. This method is so very labor and time intensive; I only go this route once in a while. Instead, in shooting conditions like these, it seems best to work the angle and direction of the sun. I most always shoot in manual so I can work aperture and shutter speed independently, and I also work the exposure compensation settings as best I can. My worst ones have most often been when I tried to go beyond the effective focal range of my lens or the under/overexposure tolerance of my camera.

Good advice. Little by little as I begin to understand and learn to use the different camera functions, it's beginning to make sense. The learning curve was a bit intimidating at first. I'm finally starting to have fun.