Had some fun with Photoshop and Picasa

Once I got going I did about 8 of these. I'll put up 3 of them (before and after). 1st will be a Common Grackle

before editing

after

Female Red-eyed Vireo before editing

after edit

Red-tailed Hawk before edit

and after edit

Nice editing Burd ...looks like you are having a great time. You are getting some very nice shots of your birds!!

Edited since I had the wrong name...duh!!



This message was edited Oct 18, 2009 7:24 AM

Nice ones Burd!!

Thx Dellrose, Pelle




Burd

Burd, I see you are having fun playing with your new toy. But, you are just getting started. I only partially understand Photoshop. This is an example of one of my better edits.

The final results, first.

This message was edited Oct 17, 2009 10:35 AM

This was the original image down loaded from the camera.

I've learned a poor quality original, can never be edited into a good quality picture. The better the sharpness and detail in the original, the better the final picture will be.

I have some better quality pictures but I'm saving those until I master the software. I have a lot of nice hummer pics I can practice with also. I really like the blue background for your hummer, great pic btw.

Wow! These are great photo's! I don't have a clue how to use photoshop. My husband has played around with it in the past but I have a short attention span and not a lot of patience, LOL. Seeing these really nice pic's makes me want to learn to have a little patience!

Well I tried a couple of pics like your Hummer Grasmussen , but when I crop I lose to much quality. I only have a point and shoot with 8mp. By next spring I hope to have a nice SLR or something, with a decent lens or two, I also need to get better with a camera. Ive had the software for a over a year but only used it to re-size or hit the auto-contrast button. Picasa has some decent features and I also have Adobe Image Ready. I need to do this stuff with my old pc which has a nice video card and wont crash like my laptop right in the middle of editing... I need to get off my butt and get a new cpu for my other pc.

A little clue about working with edits in Photoshop... when you finish and save your edit, choose "Save As" and give the edit a new name. Then you can close the original without saving changes and you can work with it again later. You should always keep an original intact on your computer or on a backup device. You can edit it over and over this way, and still have a "safe" copy. I learned this the hard way when I did "save" on an edit and really needed to redo the edit and couldn't because my original had gone bye bye.

Yes always use (Save as) I still have all my originals, I need to put them on disc now, I think Ive got like 30gb's of pics. lol Another winter project.

Used Picasa to fix a couple of pics (nothing special) but it improved them a bit, had some noise in them, but it was just a plain ugly day for pics. Hard to know if you got a sharp pic until you upload them, gotta love digital cameras though.
I'll post the before and after.

3rd time to try and upload...

after editing

b4

and after...

Nice ones Burd!

Nice work Burd. Sometimes you can get rid of branches and twigs too, if they are in your way.. Here is your red tailed after about 10 minutes.

Dave.

Did you do that with Paint Shop Pro?

No I used ACDSee Pro 2.5. I used the cloning tool and the healing brush. I know you can do it in in Photoshop, and probably with Paint Shop Pro too. I just am more familiar with ACDSee since I have used it for years. I just got Paint Shop Pro a few weeks ago. I had an earlier version of it six or eight years ago and they recently offered all previous owners a deep discount on their latest version and when I saw what it could do with removing backgrounds and combining pictures, I couldn't pass it up.

Looks like you're really enjoying yourself-great job!

I have some other pictures that have tree branches in the way that I'll try and edit. If I get anywhere with them I'll post them.
Thx Pelle and Duc. I think being able to cover-up branches and whatever is good,because you may have a bird that you may never get another shot of, and if the pics can be fixed why not.

2dCousinDave - your work on Burd's hawk is amazing. I have Elements 7 and Picasa, but have never tried anything like that. I got to read up on it and see if Elements 7 will do that.

Burd_Fotos - have you tried graying the background and leaving the bird the original color? That's pretty cool, too.

Hack

Hack, I always have that on my list, would like to try that and the sky blue backgrounds, sooner or later. :|

Burd, Here is your original, with the background totally removed and the hawk displayed against a gray backrgound.

This was done in Paint Shop Pro.

Actually,I think this is a better shot. I removed the outline around his neck and head and lightened the whole thing just a tad.

Holy crap! lol Nice work Dave! I had to scroll back up to see the orig. lol

Yes, that last one is just that much better. Glad you did that it gives me faith for some of my present/future Warbler pictures. I may fix a couple tomm. night. Thx. Dave!

2dCousinDave - you gotta stop that right now. I'm being tempted to spend too much time playing with my photos and less time out with my camera.

Still, I envy your skills at enhancement - wow. Like Burd, I had to look back at the original and I say again - WOW!

Hack

You're right, Hack. It can eat up time . And you are never quite satisfied. But it's a fun thing to do on a rainy day.

This is my last modification. Removing the faint outline of a branch across his belly.

Oops! I showed you the wrong copy. This is the one I meant to post.

2dCousinDave - Outstanding!

I just had a thought. I may try to create a alien bird, you know put a turkey vulture's head on a Cardinal' body or something like that.

Not even sure it'll work.

Hack

Here ya go Hack, some inspiration. lol

http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/05/weird-animals-created-using-photoshop.html

That is so neat Burd!!!

They (almost) look believable. lol

My first stick removal edit, with one of my favorite pics.

Magnolia Warbler before edit.