Something new on a post today. It is not a guest post per say, but featured image was not taken by me. I decided to take part in Digital Photography School Monthly Edits challenge, and instead of just posting a comment on the web page with the final image, I decided to write a post on my blog about how I achieved the final effect.
I basically like the image and how it was post-processed. I love the colors, and I though I will try to make them pop up as well. What I wanted to tackle is how the mountains disappear in the distance. I want to see their shape distinct rather then bare suggestion they are there, and it is a main reason I decided to take part in the challenge. Overall, the image lacks contrast in the top part.
I spent three evenings trying to make it “my way”. I started from basic black and white conversion, which was not interesting at all. Then I tried a single image HDR to recover some of the mountains and maintain detail in the bird, but I created just too much noise and overall did not like the result. I tried to add a split-neutral density filter on top part, and I wasn’t able to recover as much as I wanted before the noise set in, but it felt like I was onto something.
In this moment, I created several virtual copies and was just going through sliders, and I had hard time recreating what I did when I had a final image. So I had to go back and start from the beginning, writing down each step.
First I took the image to Photoshop as Smart Object, made a copy of a smart object, and using Camera Raw, adjusted top copy to +1 and the bottom copy to -2. The top layer blending mode I chose to set to Overlay, by trial and error. It worked, I had enough detail in the mountains. I actually just saw the trick on Photoshop User TV episode 211. I made another copy of the smart object with Exposure as it was originally, created a layer mask of the shape of the bird, and with Normal blending mode, lowered the opacity to 37% to lighten the bird without it being to obvious. Uff, it was complicated.
Back in Lightroom, I added some Clarity and Vibrance and placed a graduated filter on the sky. I made it -0.6 stop and added an orange color, picked from the sky itself. Another graduated filter, light blue, I added to the bottom part. I cleaned few spots (probably post-processing artifacts) and added +0.5 in exposure to the whole image. I also cropped the image so the bird was in one of nodal points of rule of thirds grid. To finish off, I added some post-crop vignette and sharpened a bit.
It would be it, if I didn’t try to turn it black and white again, and discovered that the color in my graduated filters was preserved in the conversion.
You can see the original image, the final full color version, and my favorite, colored black and white.

I am looking through the few shots I took in Davis, California last week. Not enough for a gallery, but I will probably put few on a blog. This is one of my favorites, the way it turned out. It was done towards the evening, but it was still enough light to fool the meter when shooting up in the sky. The effect is a nice silhouetted bird on the silhouette of the tree. Apparently, turkey vultures have a favorite spot in one of the city parks, close to the river, as I was passing them all those times I was out with my hosts and their dogs. I actually turned the shot Greyscale, but there was hardly any color before that!

This is another of my “lost” picture. It seems that if you use a color-tinted filter, you should be able to “fix” your white balance… Apparently, not always or not quickly. But… In the process, something catchy can come out of it, like for today’s post.

I feel like I have nothing to say today. It is one of those day, when nothing comes together, all just drifts apart. The only thing which worked out today is the photo. Actually, the more I look at it, the more I like it. I knew I caught the landing bird, but I had only 200 mm lens, and the early spring grass was so intensely green, the the image just was not there. I considered duo-tone for a minute, but that wouldn’t do either. Simple Saturation slider was all the photo really needed….

I got up today, first time in a long time, at 6 am. Adding to that, that I am an hour ahead of my home time zone, it has to account for something? Anyway, the reason for that was to join a birdwatching trip organized as a field trip during the meeting I attend. I have not seen too many birds during that our. I heard a lot, and some pros in the group were calling names. However, there was one bluebird, on parking lot, but my 200 mm with converter didn’t got exciting picture. But the robin slightly sticking his head out of the nest was just right. The nest was on a tree just next to path.

The Raptor Center is so close to home, that I seem to be a returning guest there. I do not particularly enjoy struggle with cage’s grids, but sometimes the picture will come out all right and the birds are interesting there and, by being contained, easy to photograph in various poses and at various angles.

The fact that the apparent name of the bird is not very popular in Google, and the first hit is the Blank Park Zoo web page, makes me think it may have another, more scientific or established name. Any suggestions?
Either way,the bird’s silhouette was just exquisite. The shape it created, I just loved it. It it was freezing after it moved, which was taking a photograph easy.

It is almost spring around here. With temperatures above 40F most of the last week, the snow is melting, and it still keeps worm. So we set off for the afternoon in the neighboring State Park. Couple of hours, and it seems I am well set for the week of blogging. Although I still feel that winter is not exactly a colorful season, there was a lot of photo opportunities for pattern, but also some wildlife. When I first saw those birds in the distance on the river, I wasn’t exactly sure, what they are. I added 2x teleconverter on top of my 18-200 mm lens, and with effectively 600 mm (sometimes I like my 40Dx ) I took this environmental portrait of ducks on the snowy beach.

Saturday again, assignment work for my Lensbaby class is in making. I actually had some fun shooing today. I put first the 2x telephoto on Lensbaby (by the way, it has a thread as digital camcorders, so it was dug out of my husbands stash), and then I got even braver- and put the 2x teleconverter under Lensbaby. Both worked like charm. I was aiming at the bunch of small birds on my bird feeder. I was posting some views of my deck bird feeder before, but this time I wanted a lot of birds, fighting, playing, whatever it is birds do. It was about noon, so with ISO 100 my shutter speed was in thousands, and I loved it! I was able to perfectly catch the movement of the wings without blurring it. Well, of course there is Lensbaby blur, but this was intentional. I also think that the teleconveretrs help to throw the view out of focus. It was a though choice to pick one photo for blog today.

The Raptor Center I wrote about yesterday has also a bird blind, accompanied by regularly refilled multiple bird feeders. Great chance to observe and photograph Iowa winter birds, like dark-eyed junco or cardinals. Squirrels can also be found there, lazy creatures, and deer would pass by. An interesting place to hang out.