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You have read the advice which has been posted here on the usage of the rule of thirds, DOF and using light and you are still not happy with the outcome?
You have a photo of an extremely rare sighting, but it has come out bad and you want to see if someone can make it look better?
You have tried the Photoshop "tricks", but still can't get it right?
In this topic you can post your photo's for advice, with the aim of furthering your photographic and Photoshop skills.

Some little guides.
The photo's have to be SANParks related.
Comments made are to be constructive, and should help the poster, as well as other readers.
Posting photo's for manipulation means posting the original if possible. That would mean very large photo's, and make this page very modem-user unfriendly. So kindly post a small photo for people to see, and a link to the large version.
Did you manipulate a photo? Please state what you did, so all can learn.
(Needless to say, but still: Posts that just say "Good pic" or such will be removed, as the poster obviously does not think so.)

Two possible ways:
The easy one is select the pinkish area with the "magic wand", and fill it with a dark color, as near as possible to the natural color and then "blur" it a bit with the brush.
Another one is to use the clonebrush to "clone" bits of the darker feathers into the eye, and then "blur" it a bit with the brush.
I haven't got my PC online yet, so I cannot yet show you examples of it.

I would love some thoughts on two pics please.





Thanks in advance!
WTM.

WTM:
1) That is a great scene to catch. IMVHO I would have not centred him but put him in the right hand side of the pic. I would have also zoomed in more to cut out the glare of the white sky.

2) Also a nice catch with the oxpecker in flight. I'm not sure what I would do here, maybe crop a fair chunk of the photo away so as to make the bird more prominant.

bwana

Thanks alot Bwana. This is one area where I can learn from you. I see what you mean. I does make an awfull lot of sense. Is it always a good idea to not centre the object you want to photograph? I see some at the end of the tunnel for me.


{* WTM looking up at the White-backed Vulture flying over his head *}

I'll keep that in mind if I get an opportunity to take a pic the next time the vulture comes by.

That was one of the 1st things I learned when I started to get interested in Photography ... "The rule of 3rd's?"

I agree that putting the elephant to the right would have been very nice ...

However, the clarity and moments captured on both pictures is very nice ...

I like that 2nd picture quite a lot ... would shutter speed have made a difference in the clarity of the bird maybe?

Still ... I enjoyed the pics ... well done

A faster shutter speed would have maybe caught the birds wings, but I kind of like the fact that it is blurred. It gives the photo an action shot kind of feel which is great. Its a personal choice really.
bwana

Good point ...

Me personally ... I hate blurres in my shots ... which is why I never get the perfect shot (and also explains why I don't have a lot of pictures) ... small piece of blur and delete ...

I think everything was already said.

One thing I also need to practice is the rule of 3rds. As Bwana mentioned moving the ellie to the right would have allowed more of the WH to be seen. It would also bring the "koppie" on the left into the frame immediately reducing the amount of open sky, which could then be eliminated by lowering the camera angle or even go down on the knee to take the shot. The photo also clearly shows us the habitat the ellie was seen in. Habitat something I was made aware of a couple of days ago when a friend looked at some of my latest Cape Rock-jumper photos where more than just the bird good be seen and he mentioned that he liked that.

The second photo is also good. Seems that you were close enough to the animals not to have zoomed in to much as most of the frame is in focus (both the animal in front and the one in the back). YES, faster shutter speed would have "frozen" the Oxpecker but then we are normally not prepared for the sudden flight of a bird. The bird is however still clearly in focus.

IMHO it is much easier to look at the photo after it was taken and suggesting corrections than actually perfectly framing it before taking the photo. Something I must still learn. I am sure that the more skilled photographers will agree with me when I say that having a good eye for framing the scene before taking the picture works a great deal towards good photos, and the second thing is to get the picture in focus!

In the end still 2 great photos.

On a different note, I took the liberty of enhancing the image somewhat:


Compare with original

I find that most digital camera pics get considerably better with some amount of post-processing.

Any comments/advice on this one, please?

It looks like the camera is at a greater height than the bird; it might have looked better if you could have crouched a bit and had the camera parallel with is chest. Also, a wider aperture would have blurred out the background and made it less distracting.

Almost the same as with the previous two, in other words try to put the subject somewhat more offcenter. This is what I quickly made of it:



Steps taken:
1. Cropped it to show the difference between center and offcenter. (The cropping tool was set to 3:2, the normal photosize. A square crop may be better in this case.) That also got rid of a lot of the confusing background.
2. Used PS levels in the most basic way to adjust the color, by selected the white picktool and clicking on the white patch on the shoulder. That bit should usually be white.
3. Sharpened it a bit.

Agree with the height, but this is a problem taking photos from some of the bird hides. This looks as if it was taken from the hide in Punda Maria. This hide is about 2 meters above the ground!