Gliding
Uploaded: November 30, 2006 10:46:27
Sandhill crane gliding past fall tamarisk (salt cedar)
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
Background blurred in Photoshop using motion blur (see discussion for details)
Pamela K November 30, 2006
I blurred the background to reduce the complexity which was interfering with the crane.To blur the background, I made a duplicate layer of the entire photo, selected the crane using the magnetic lasso and lasso, erased the crane off of the top layer, and applied a motion blur to the background. I erased the crane to avoid having the crane's edges blurred.
Here is what the background would look like without the blur.
Pam #565035
Cary Rogers November 30, 2006
Very nice work, Pam! A wonderful capture of this beautiful bird made even more effective by use of the motion blur! and Thanks for sharing your technique! #3651114Jeff Robinson November 30, 2006
Outstanding work Pam! Your blur tool really did the trick and making this an amazing image; Great job! Jeff #3651261Linda McLellan November 30, 2006
This is very nice and how kind of you to explain how you achieved this! I do appreciate this so that I can try new techniques also. #3651353Ellen Hodges November 30, 2006
Great job! #3651417Ronald F. Fischer November 30, 2006
Awesome capture and PS work, Pam!! Thank you so much for sharing the technique! #3651424Shawn M. Marymee November 30, 2006
Pam,I think you have another winner on your hands! I even made my husband come look at it. lol.
Shawn #3651538
Christina C. Moore November 30, 2006
Simply wonderful! I hope it wins. #3651821Jessica L. Richard November 30, 2006
wow, great capture and ps work! #3651987Paul G Slate November 30, 2006
Wow Pam Awsome job !!! #3652120Karacan Salkuci (Kalacay) December 02, 2006
Wonderful image. #3659537Pamela K December 02, 2006
Thank you, Cary, Jeff, Linda, Ellen, Ronald, Shawn, Christina, Jessica, Paul, and Kara!!!!!!!! I'm glad you all enjoyed this image. It was a lot of fun creating it!Pam #3659799
Laura Clay-Ballard December 04, 2006
awesome. I like your tip about erasing .. #3663920Pamela K December 04, 2006
Thank you, Laura!!! Glad I could help!Pam #3665068
William88 December 04, 2006
Awesome picture. The motion blur is really wonderful for this image!! #3666555Sharon Day December 04, 2006
Awesome capture, Pam!!! I love both versions but I think the motion blur is a winner! Great job! #3666903Pamela K December 04, 2006
Thank you William and Sharon!!!! #3667314Diane Dupuis December 27, 2006
Wow - I love both versions! Very well done Pam! #3744909Kay E. Mahoney December 29, 2006
Congratulations on your beautiful finalist. Good luck in the next round. #3753034Shawn M. Marymee December 29, 2006
Pamela,Congratulations on your finalist! #3753058
Cathy M. Gromball December 29, 2006
Congratulations on this wonderful finalist, Pamela!Cathy :) #3753606
Wendy S. Mogul December 29, 2006
Wow outstanding work in blurring the backround! it adds so much to the shot!Cindy Cone December 29, 2006
Congrats on this well-deserved finalist! Great work! #3753931Donna La Mattino Pagakis December 29, 2006
Great action capture, congratulations! #3754664Jeff Robinson December 29, 2006
Congrats on your excellent Finalist!! Jeff #3756223William88 December 29, 2006
Congratulations on this wonderful finalist!! Good luck in the next round. #3757606Sharon Day December 30, 2006
Congratulations, Pam!!! I knew the judges would ilke this one! #3761039Pamela K June 05, 2007
Thank you, Diane, Marc, Kay, Shawn, Cathy, Wendy, Cindy, Donna, Jeff, William, Sharon, Rohit, and the Judges!!!Rohit, in the two photos posted here, the crane is actually exactly the same. I didn't change the sharpness after blurring the background. However, I do always slightly increase the sharpness of all my photos after sizing them down for BetterPhoto. When you reduce the pixels, the sharpness decreases a bit, so I use Unsharp Mask in Photoshop. If you have Photoshop, it's under the Filters menu under Sharpen. Just be careful not to oversharpen because it makes your photo look fake.
Pam #4368256
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