He is not the first, but he is best so far...

Hello Izzie, nice peli. Living in Florida I have come to love these birds. I took the liberty to edit your image, if this is a problem I will remove the edit but I can show better than I can explain. I cropped your image tighter. In Adobe Lightroom 5 using the Radial Filter I lowered the exposure around the Pelican. To highlight the pelican this is what I would do. Cloning out of focus water can be very difficult to have it look right.

http://i39.tinypic.com/67408o.jpg

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

Happy New Year to you and yours Mark.

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Back to you Izzie - and everyone else here.

I just remove the photo in this reply but it doesn't mean I do not like it. A few had said do it this way and I like your version too. Just as sometimes there comes a time when we wanted something studio like too. All the same, different way of looking and different interpretation. Lots to learn...maybe I should put that in my bucket list -- to practice more PP for presentation and for my own pleasure try to get it right the first time...maybe birdies are not unlike taking airplane shots too...they both fly, they both move...one variety is man-made inanimate and the other one alive by the grace of our Creator. I can remember Radial from Photoshop but is in the Blur Filter...hmmm...so much to learn...will that be the same.

Oh, btw, I like Florida a lot. We usually go to Cedar Key as DH's best friend lives there...but we fly to Lakeland for the Sun n Fun each year...I try to avoid Florida because I am allergic to 'noseeam' (????)

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Originally Posted by jprzybyla

Hello Izzie, nice peli. Living in Florida I have come to love these birds. I took the liberty to edit your image, if this is a problem I will remove the edit but I can show better than I can explain. I cropped your image tighter. In Adobe Lightroom 5 using the Radial Filter I lowered the exposure around the Pelican. To highlight the pelican this is what I would do. Cloning out of focus water can be very difficult to have it look right.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

Happy New Year. P.S. You do not mind me copying your instructions, do you?

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neni zac, of course you know that means you are welcome.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

Your two photos of the Neddies are both very good. I live almost an hour away from the Geelong/Lorne area and had taken numerous photos at both area down to the Warnambool where the whale population are.

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Our plan is to do the jaunt from Lorne to Warnambool in Oct next year.
I enjoyed the day trip we took to the 12 apostles, well worth doing on such a great road.
Love the scenery, kind of a bit like Fiordland, and the history to the road is captivating.
Some of my Aussie connections said don't bother, I am glad I ignored them.
Must post up my photo of the Ferarris, Lamboghini and Porsche that arrived by our East Coast Rental Nissan in Lorne!

Re the Neddies photos, if you look closely at the road below the dark patch in the bush you will see the join and where it is not quite right. You can also see it in the beach if you know where to look.

I didn't find it easy to fix the photo after I had stitched it together.
Took ages to do.

Rbn

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Originally Posted by rawill

Our plan is to do the jaunt from Lorne to Warnambool in Oct next year.
I enjoyed the day trip we took to the 12 apostles, well worth doing on such a great road.
Love the scenery, kind of a bit like Fiordland, and the history to the road is captivating.
Some of my Aussie connections said don't bother, I am glad I ignored them.
Must post up my photo of the Ferarris, Lamboghini and Porsche that arrived by our East Coast Rental Nissan in Lorne!

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I was once flew with a bunch of Kiwis on their way to Melbourne to attend a dealer's conference and to watch crickets while there. I tell you when they seat three rows around you, expect happy mayhem! The three hours flight became very interesting indeed...:D Good luck with your trip...Love the Great Ocean Road area. It used to be quite an abandoned strip of road once only populated every now and then with B & Bs and small communities ... We used to stay a Kenneth River each year for camping. Then the kids grew up...:(

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Re the Neddies photos, if you look closely at the road below the dark patch in the bush you will see the join and where it is not quite right. You can also see it in the beach if you know where to look.

I didn't find it easy to fix the photo after I had stitched it together.
Took ages to do.

Rbn

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I use Hugin to stitch my panoramas...what program do you use? I stitch mine in raw first if I am using Photoshop then edit it after...

Nothing so sophisticated.

Taken in JPEG, on an old P/S see my signature.
Stiched in Windows gallery, then PP in GIMP or Fastone.

Hugin is a free download for both PC and Mac and translated in so many languages too.

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Originally Posted by rawill

Nothing so sophisticated.

Taken in JPEG, on an old P/S see my signature.
Stiched in Windows gallery, then PP in GIMP or Fastone.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

Eeeeee...I have one more birdie photo to upload, so thank you if I get the courage to do so. Truth to say, I have been hesitant to touch my camera as of late because I was burned by a recent event my husband and I hosted for his airplane club, so I bought a digital piano to amuse myself.:D I can't sing either so my best bet is either to continue my photography or play my piano..:):):) Having been here at CiC where images are more prolific and the camaraderies very refreshing might encourage me not to be scared of touching my camera again...who knows? At the moment I am building up some courage.

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Sorry to hear that you are hesitant to take photos. Sometimes a break can be good to renew. I would have to agree that CiC is a great place for encouragement, learning, and exchange with great photographers from diverse backgrounds.

Not knowing how long you've been in the midwest, there are several opportunities to pick back up that camera -- eagle days at wild bird sanctuary, Fete De Glace (Ice carving), Mardi Gras (I'm not much for parting, but the pet parade is fun. The MG parade is not family friendly and not like carnival parades in the warmer places). There are also several "Meet-ups" for photography. I often shoot at wild bird sanctuary, the local zoo, lone elk park, and at the local Locks/Dams (during cold weather for eagles fishing, #24 in clarksville is nice). Feel free to drop me a note on CiC, facebook, or G+ if you ever want to go out shooting.

That is a very nice offer. DH and I am going to the Riverland Migratory Bird Sanctuary in a forthnight. I haven't been there...that is why I am working myself up for that event I agreed to go to. It is an event by the St. Louis Digital Photography Group.

TobyMac .. I must say gave me the inspiration to go back to do indoor shots recently just by directing us to his blog/web page...I haven't been to the Fete de Glace either---that seems interesting. They have one in St. Charles...

Mardi Gras will be a no-no...:) My next event will be on February to Australia; May 3-4 the Spirit of St. Louis is to host the Blue Angels. June will be at the Wright Bros airport in Dayton for DH's airplane club...he will finally retire from his position as chairman of the board (yeeeeyyyyy!!!); July to Oregon, etc...I really and badly needed that break...time to get my butt off the ground and start shooting again....

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Originally Posted by BJ Denning

Sorry to hear that you are hesitant to take photos. Sometimes a break can be good to renew. I would have to agree that CiC is a great place for encouragement, learning, and exchange with great photographers from diverse backgrounds.

Not knowing how long you've been in the midwest, there are several opportunities to pick back up that camera -- eagle days at wild bird sanctuary, Fete De Glace (Ice carving), Mardi Gras (I'm not much for parting, but the pet parade is fun. The MG parade is not family friendly and not like carnival parades in the warmer places). There are also several "Meet-ups" for photography. I often shoot at wild bird sanctuary, the local zoo, lone elk park, and at the local Locks/Dams (during cold weather for eagles fishing, #24 in clarksville is nice). Feel free to drop me a note on CiC, facebook, or G+ if you ever want to go out shooting.

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Fete De glace is downtown St Charles on the 25th-Jan. Mardi Gras in the midwest lacks the elaborate costumes and I would agree that it is useless. The Beggin’ Barkus Pet Parade and PetSmart Wiener Dog Derby on 23-Feb are a lot of fun, if you like dogs. And World Eagle Day at the wild bird sanctuary is 16-Mar.

I envy your trip to Australia. I have been wanting to plan a trip to Australia/New Zealand for awhile. Perhaps 2014 is the year.

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Originally Posted by BJ Denning

I envy your trip to Australia. I have been wanting to plan a trip to Australia/New Zealand for awhile. Perhaps 2014 is the year.

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Go for it.

Should I apologize first? To us Aussies, Melbourne and Sydney go head in head when it comes to Mardi Gras parade colourful costumes and such by gay people. I have not been here in Missouri.

Thank you for the tip on the doggie parade. I'd love to see them both. Hubby and I am going to the Wild Bird Sanctuary this coming Saturday. And every morning at Channel 2 they have a reporting of where the eagles are.

I still have a house in Melbourne (Australia) so I get to go every year at least. Go to Australia...it is a beautiful country...you won't be disappointed.

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Originally Posted by BJ Denning

Fete De glace is downtown St Charles on the 25th-Jan. Mardi Gras in the midwest lacks the elaborate costumes and I would agree that it is useless. The Beggin’ Barkus Pet Parade and PetSmart Wiener Dog Derby on 23-Feb are a lot of fun, if you like dogs. And World Eagle Day at the wild bird sanctuary is 16-Mar.

I envy your trip to Australia. I have been wanting to plan a trip to Australia/New Zealand for awhile. Perhaps 2014 is the year.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

...what I did was a fast clone when the content aware did not work in other areas...

...I will take up your suggestion about random cloning. I did not use the healing brush, it might be a good idea...

...I will try it on mine again until I get it right.

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Hi Isabel! There have been a number of situations like this where I can't control the subject, background, or shooting angle. When this is recognized at shoot time, move the camera slightly left or right and snap a suitable background. When you are PP and need to clone out part of the image (as you have here), simply line up the matching background shot in the layer below (positioning as needed) and instead of cloning, brush through the mask to the background layer. No obvious clone marks! The real benefit comes when you have a particularly large object to clone out as you have here. This method normally takes less time and usually provides better control over the result. I save the clone tool for smaller corrections where repeating patterns are rare and easily controlled.

Alternatively, copy this image and position the area to the right of the pelican in the lower layer so that it is behind the offending pylon and brush through the mask as above. Although it is not the case here, the drawback is if the pattern is obvious it might not be a much better result than cloning.

Thanks Frank...you have always been helpful to me since the beginning. I appreciate your help and will try harder. I sort of think masking is more harder...

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Originally Posted by FrankMi

Hi Isabel! There have been a number of situations like this where I can't control the subject, background, or shooting angle. When this is recognized at shoot time, move the camera slightly left or right and snap a suitable background. When you are PP and need to clone out part of the image (as you have here), simply line up the matching background shot in the layer below (positioning as needed) and instead of cloning, brush through the mask to the background layer. No obvious clone marks! The real benefit comes when you have a particularly large object to clone out as you have here. This method normally takes less time and usually provides better control over the result. I save the clone tool for smaller corrections where repeating patterns are rare and easily controlled.

Alternatively, copy this image and position the area to the right of the pelican in the lower layer so that it is behind the offending pylon and brush through the mask as above. Although it is not the case here, the drawback is if the pattern is obvious it might not be a much better result than cloning.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

I sort of think masking is more harder...

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I suspect that once you get used to it you will find that cloning is the harder of the two.

Perhaps a picture would help? In this Image, all I am doing is painting black on a white mask with a soft brush to 'see' what is in the layer below. The mask simply cuts a hole in the top image so that you can view what is showing through the hole from the image below. Whatever is black in the mask shows what is in the layer below. Whatever is white in the mask shows what is on the top layer.

Edit: OK. That could be confusing as I am actually painting white holes on a black mask but the principal is identical. Black shows what is below, white shows what is on top. I could have just as easily reversed the layers and used a white mask with black holes. Sorry! I hope I haven't made it harder to follow. :(

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

Should I apologize first? To us Aussies, Melbourne and Sydney go head in head when it comes to Mardi Gras parade colourful costumes and such by gay people. I have not been here in Missouri.

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No apology needed. I have no idea of any meaning behind costumes, in the mid-west or elsewhere. Typically the Midwest is conservative. So here what you will find is college aged people looking for an excuse to drink and party -- nothing worth a photo, no costumes of significance (maybe the rare face painting). I like animals so the pet activities catch my attention.

The Wild Bird Sanctuary is an excellent organization. They do close during snow do to their remote location. In the spring/summer they have programs on the weekends where they fly birds, which can be good predictable practice for Birds in Flight photos (most of my raptor photos come from there).

... I am currently using Paint Shop Pro x6 though have three other older versions avail;able to me. The basic requirement is to be able to post as a new layer and then to erase that layer where it covers the bird and ease softly ... it also helps if you can reduce the density of one layer to see what is below it. PSP does this and more very nicely but not sure if Photoshop, Elements or GIMP can do all those things. When I had PS I found it rather limited in ways I wanted.

The main problem I see with what you did is that the water replacing the post doesn't look like the surrounding water so I only used the clone tool for a few small isolated areas. Instead I copied a large chunk of water from the top right of the [picture and copied it first over the righthand pole and then another copy of it over the left pair of poles. The next stage is to get rid of the hard line edges of the pastings which is done with a erase brush on the appropriate layer at a low setting so it sort of merges the two images. The tricky bit is erasing the pasted water to match the outline of the bird which I do with a low strength erase brush gradually getting closer and closer to the bird until the offending bit of water is erased from the bird... a better way is to use a layer mask but yet to try that more than once and with PSPx6 I have a tool which largely removes the need for layer masks is what I have attempte to date since getting the updated programme before Xmas.
http://i44.tinypic.com/sy85r9.jpg
The final stage for me is getting the tone of each layer to match the others and sometimes things seem to change on posting but it seems to look OK on my monitor.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

I use Hugin to stitch my panoramas...what program do you use? I stitch mine in raw first if I am using Photoshop then edit it after...

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Istarted with CanonStitch becuase I had a canon P&S which taught me how to shoot or panos. Then I read an obvious experienced professioanl saying he never used a stitch programme but his editing programme so I started and apart from quick jobs only use Paint Shop Pro .... though the latest versions have an annoying limitation on the number of pixels you can have is a compliation of layers so I keep my older version for Panos. Else with a 16Mp camera ZI have to reduce the file size of each frame to a quarter for the big panos I normally am doing with a dozen frames or so.

further to my earlier since you have PS you should be able to work the way Frank suggested which is basically how I did but using different tools.

So it means your Mardi Gras parade here is very tame...not so over in Oz. It is totally a gay/lesbian parade so you can see the most-est of the best-est in costumes. I would rather prefer the animal parade too even if I am not keen on dressed up animals, nor shaved to the skin ones. I used to dress up Cooper but not Tucker...he is a man's dog. Cooper was truly mine. Lennix, my first rottenweiler, was also mine so when I say "pretty-pretty" he knows he will have to endure being outfitted with sunglasses and some silly headband and his photo taken...love dogs.

When travelling, I take what I can of what is there...which during most of my life here in the US are all about airplanes and stuffs related...so no more. I decided to quit that last year so I am looking for something else to study in detail with, taking photographs of them...This year is my year of learning many techniques if possible, including going back from simple composition to Fibonacci...and of course PP.

Btw, since you are also here in Missouri, during the summer through to late autumn, I would like to invite you to go flying with me and my husband even just once. It will be fun for you. Send me a PM when you are ready.

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Originally Posted by BJ Denning

No apology needed. I have no idea of any meaning behind costumes, in the mid-west or elsewhere. Typically the Midwest is conservative. So here what you will find is college aged people looking for an excuse to drink and party -- nothing worth a photo, no costumes of significance (maybe the rare face painting). I like animals so the pet activities catch my attention.

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