What is in my head isn't quite coming out???

[Rita]

Hi all, I took some images of a seagull with wings in slightly different positions and also an image of a white poofy cloud. My intent, and the pic in my head, was to combine the images and have the gulls appearing to be flying through and out of the cloud. Some of my selections could be done better but I can work on that. The colour version I found was too much so I desaturated the cloud and sky. This is a trial run for me as I haven't done this kind of thing before and I am finding that what I have pictured isn't quit what I ended up with so I am soliciting some advice. Should the gulls be larger, placed differently, or should I use 3 instead of 5 to improve this? Is there a better way to achieve what I am aiming for? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

1.

[chauncey]

Rita, what you're trying to do is no easy trick...proper selections are the key.
Number of birds is irrelevant and there's no need to desaturate the sky.

My method would be...open the bird image and select the birds>open two images of the sky and paste
the birds into one of them>use the other sky image to make a selection of the clouds and paste that
cloud selection on top of the birds, aligning it with the existing clouds.

The tricky part is the cloud selection...I'm kinda partial to the Color Range command, in this case,
the whites followed by refine edge with a loose feather.

It's gonna take a lot of trial and error to get it right...good luck.

[IzzieK]

The expert has spoken, Rita...heed his advice. I'll wait for progress to be made...

[Mike Buckley]

I think no matter how effective your post-processing technique is, the birds won't look like they are flying out of the cloud. That's because the size of the cloud and birds indicate that the cloud is far away and that the birds are much, much closer. If the birds were truly flying out of the cloud, you wouldn't be able to see them until they were completely clear of the cloud and probably not until they were also a lot closer than being just clear of the cloud. Another way of looking at it is that if the cloud was close enough for the birds to be seen when flying out of the mist, you would not be able to see the edges of the cloud. The cloud would be nothing but mist with no clearly defined edges and with far less tonal variation.

[Shadowman]

You could clone out part of the bird's body to make it look like it's emerging from the cloud. Or you could convert to a gif for an animated image.

[NorthernFocus]

IMO there are two things that don't look right. Mike identified one which is that our brains are "calibrated" by our visual experience and the apparent distance of the cloud and bird here don't mesh. Second, the opacity of the first two birds is too uniform relative to the billowed/puffy nature of the cloud. It seems there should be parts completely obscured. For that reason the third bird doesn't look at all natural. It would look more so if the part "in" the cloud was totally obscured.

You're finding out why composite images are difficult to produce with a natural look. I tried it a few times several years ago and totally abandoned the effort as too much work.

[Manfred M]

The other thing that jumps out at me is the lighting. The gulls look backlit (look at the light spots). The cloud does nbot look like it was hit by the same intensity and direction.

Unless the cloud has a similar type of lighting, your finished image will scream "fake"!

[Rita]

Thank you all for your feedback. I am going to go through your comments slowly and digest what has been said.

The cloud image was taken from the opposite side of the sky from the birds, should have thought about the different lighting. Maybe what I should do is start this task with a simple blue sky background from one of the birds instead of the clouds. I will keep trying until I get it

[bnnrcn]

Hi Rita Thanks for starting such a thread, I have learnt a lot from the comments. I think what you are trying to achieve is a tedious work. Why not trying real shots with birds and clouds ?

[Rita]

Hi Binnur, taking real shots would certainly be a lot easier I started this task on a whim. Went out to practice taking Bif images and captured the gull with the different wing positions, then, I saw this poofy cloud and thought about the gull coming out of it. I didn't realize what was involved until I played with the idea. Yes, it was tedious editing but I was learning along the way too. I figure that if I don't get it right then I have still gained some knowledge

[chauncey]

Why not trying real shots with birds and clouds

Hmm, what would that take...perhaps advanced critter conditioning to get them to fly thru
the clouds on cue>then a lens long enough to capture the birds at the altitude of the clouds
(about 300 meters or so)...yeah, that would be a lot easier.

[Mike Buckley]

Hmm, what would that take...perhaps advanced critter conditioning to get them to fly thru
the clouds on cue>then a lens long enough to capture the birds at the altitude of the clouds
(about 300 meters or so)...yeah, that would be a lot easier.

Considering that birds rarely if ever fly into a cloud, getting them to fly out of it will be the really hard part. That brings up the question for me of trying to simulate something that doesn't happen. Creating a surrealistic image as described makes sense, but not a realistic image.