Robin and first attempt at editing

[beckyhumphries]

Hi all

Here is a robin I came across whilst out at the local park with the camera.

Original photo:


I've had a go on Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 at editing the picture. This is version 2 as I over-did the editing on attempt 1. Any feedback would be much appreciated, especially with the editing as I'm still finding my way around the program.

It's not quite as sharp as I'd like and its quite noisy. I may have another go later!

Edited image:


Thanks, Rebecca

[jiro]

I think you did good on the crop and the edit, Rebecca. Your image can be cropped in various ways. On the horizontal orientation, you could probably position the eye of the robin on the upper left focus point using the rule of thirds, or you could position it near the upper right rule of thirds. You could also crop it vertically. Your 2nd image is already good, just add some extra contrast adjustment and some extra sharpening to make it pop. Good job!

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Becky,

The second, squarer image is a much better composition.

It looks to me like you have already had a go at sharpening just the Robin, is that so?

The most significant issue I see is that there is nothing really black in the picture, as confirmed by the histogram;



If you end up like this after applying the Local Contrast Enhancement (with USM), use (from menu) Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels (or Ctrl + L on keyboard), then click and drag the left hand (black) triangle on top graph - move it to right so it is almost touching the 'side of the mountain', like this;



Good work though, the first few are the hardest,

[beckyhumphries]

It looks to me like you have already had a go at sharpening just the Robin, is that so?

I did have a go at sharpening, but was a bit afraid of going to the extreme with it, so I didn't do it as much as I should have.

Thanks for the screen shots with the histograms. I agree it looks a lot better with the higher contrast.

Jiro, thanks for the advice about cropping. I will bear the rule of thirds in mind next time I have a go.

[Dave Humphries]

I did have a go at sharpening, but was a bit afraid of going to the extreme with it, so I didn't do it as much as I should have.

Not sure I agree, for me, more would have been too much on the Robin it/him/herself, maybe the branch would take a bit more.

I still think the crop shot is a good effort,