fairy-003.jpg
by jomari

Comment:
oh my! This is wonderful! I would really love to see what the glass ball looks like. The only nitpick I have is the blown spot on the left draws my eye. The other ones don't bother me much, perhaps because they're smaller. It's still truly wonderful, however, and very well done!

.:: Peekaboot ! ::.
by JacksonGariety

Comment:
Wow! This is spectacular! If only you could have been a little more to the right so you could crop something like this: yet have only street and sidewalk in the background. The umbrella, kid and reflections are incredible, but your background is so busy.

It still made me say "wow" when I first saw it, however. Marvelous shot!

Golden Heron
by MaryO

Comment:
Very nice! Your camera is sure a lot cleaner than mine. These photos were all so grainy for me.

Message edited by author 2010-07-02 12:56:12.

Mirror, Mirror
by MaryO

Comment:
How much did you play with the exposure? My herons were muddy in these shots.

-X-
by MaryO

Comment:
Hahah! I have that pose, as well! But my splashes looked better on the other shot. Your lighting is a lot cleaning on this, he was quite underexposed on mine. I think I'd better go back and play a little more, because this is very nice!

Glowing Heron
by MaryO

Comment:
It's too bad they kept flying away from us :)

The muddled reflection is pretty cool!

Angel
by MaryO

Comment:
ooh! nice capture! Look at those feathers!

Tree Swallow
by MaryO

Comment:
I'm impressed!

Evening Flight
by MaryO

Comment:
gorgeous!! Absolutely gorgeous!

Breakout
by pixelpig

Comment:
I think you did an excellent job of editing this photo. I tried a couple of different edits:

This first one is using your edited file and playing around with it a little more:

Things that I was trying to fix:
1. I did want the last fork position to be a little more focused and prominent, so I selected that portion of the photo and did a smart sharpen with a setting of 109 and 4.

2. The point around which the fork rotates gets quite blown out, so I burned that area. I still had a few bright highlights that looked awkward, so I cloned those out using another area that looked better.

3. saturated it a little more, because I liked the warm colors that you were bringing out.

4. increased the contrast to darken the dark areas.

This second try is from scratch:



I used Topaz 4, recovery highlight setting.
changed the curves
colorized it using the hue/sat command.
burned the point of rotation
smart sharpened the center fork

Last one is from scratch:

Silver Efex -- high structure setting
colorized using hue/sat
curves
burned the point of rotation
smart sharpened the center fork

Since people might be irritated that I'm using other programs that have an additional cost, here's an edit using photoshops features:

duplicated layer
filter->other->high pass with a setting of 6.0
changed the blend of that layer to soft light, decreased the opacity a bit.
curves
burned the point of rotation
smart sharpened the center fork

NOTE: on that last edit -- I just discovered high pass sharpening I DO NOT KNOW IF IT'S LEGAL ON DPC.

one last one:

smart sharpening 109 - 4
curves
burned the point of rotation
smart sharpened the center fork
saturated a little bit more.

Message edited by author 2010-07-02 09:37:13.