Humber River Trail May 2

[Ally]

A few more warblers. Funny enough, still didn't find a Yellow

[Ally]

The Palm was in a slightly better lighting condition. He moves like a wagtail.

[Ally]

The female Kingfisher is a little bit more cooperative. And Happy to see the first Veery in my trail.

[Shortsighted]

Excellent findings indeed. Absolutely nothing comparable around here. Have only seen one WT sparrow so far and it disappeared quickly enough. The woodlot across the street  is dead and nothing appears in the backyard that might suggest that a migration was underway. Even the blue jays don't come any more. The lighting on the Palm warbler is quite good and could be tweaked in PS very successfully. The Veery is a cute shot and the detail on the swallow is excellent. Just needs a little clean-up in PS to get rid of distracting elements. Way to go! You are the engine that drives this site ... choo, choo.

[Ally]

Excellent findings indeed. Absolutely nothing comparable around here. Have only seen one WT sparrow so far and it disappeared quickly enough. The woodlot across the street  is dead and nothing appears in the backyard that might suggest that a migration was underway. Even the blue jays don't come any more. The lighting on the Palm warbler is quite good and could be tweaked in PS very successfully. The Veery is a cute shot and the detail on the swallow is excellent. Just needs a little clean-up in PS to get rid of distracting elements. Way to go! You are the engine that drives this site ... choo, choo.

You are always so kind!! I actually got the black throated green for more time, just didn't have my camera set on the right mode.  And when you are even kinder, you can consider givING me lessons on photography and PS

[Shortsighted]

 Take your Palm warbler shot and appreciate two things that can improve its impact. One issue is cropping the shot to eliminate space on the left side of the photo (opposite of the direction the warbler is looking) in favour of relatively more space on the right side of the photo (the direction your bird is looking). This simple adjustment “cropping” delivers better balance since the viewer wants to look toward the same side of the frame as the bird is preoccupied with. Secondly, the branch to the left of your bird could be removed in PS with either the content-aware tool, or the clone tool. When using the content-aware tool you select the “loop” tool near the top of the tool bar (left side of screen) and encircle the unwanted branch by holding down the mouse until you have circumnavigated the part you wish to eliminate. Once this has been accomplished there will be a line designated the selected area. Go to EDIT, look down to “fill” and click. A box will open and the term content-aware will be visible in the box. Click OK and the designated selected area will disappear and be replaced by the surrounding background. A slower way to do the same thing is to select the clone tool, set at 100% and then select the tool size. Position the tool over the background and press the alt key, hold it down and click. This will tell the clone tool what you wish to clone. Then go to the offensive branch and click the tool over the branch, moving it around, and the branch will be replaced by the background pattern previously selected.

[Ally]

Take your Palm warbler shot and appreciate two things that can improve its impact. One issue is cropping the shot to eliminate space on the left side of the photo (opposite of the direction the warbler is looking) in favour of relatively more space on the right side of the photo (the direction your bird is looking). This simple adjustment “cropping” delivers better balance since the viewer wants to look toward the same side of the frame as the bird is preoccupied with. Secondly, the branch to the left of your bird could be removed in PS with either the content-aware tool, or the clone tool. When using the content-aware tool you select the “loop” tool near the top of the tool bar (left side of screen) and encircle the unwanted branch by holding down the mouse until you have circumnavigated the part you wish to eliminate. Once this has been accomplished there will be a line designated the selected area. Go to EDIT, look down to “fill” and click. A box will open and the term content-aware will be visible in the box. Click OK and the designated selected area will disappear and be replaced by the surrounding background. A slower way to do the same thing is to select the clone tool, set at 100% and then select the tool size. Position the tool over the background and press the alt key, hold it down and click. This will tell the clone tool what you wish to clone. Then go to the offensive branch and click the tool over the branch, moving it around, and the branch will be replaced by the background pattern previously selected.

Wow!! Thank you so much. I will try at least the first tip with my photos tomorrow. I need a bit more time to study ps tools, I only use the simplest feature on Irfanview.

[Shortsighted]

 The areas of the Palm warbler that are a little under-exposed (despite the relatively good light) can be lightened further by selecting the dodge tool. Once again select a suitable tool size, about 1/3^rd the size of the bird’s breast, and go to the adjustment bar above and dial in an opacity setting of 30% and then open the “range” box to the left of opacity and select “shadow”. Painting the tool over the shadowy part of the bird will somewhat lighten it. Then select “midrange” in the range tool and brighten the lighter areas a little as well. That will probably do it. The rest can be adjusted from the image tool menu (also along the top tool bar). Open image, select adjustment, select either Brightness/Contrast, or Levels. They appear on the menu in that order from top to bottom. With levels you can increase of decrease either the highlights, the midrange, or the dark areas with a slider.






 

Unfortunately when I convert your image file to jpeg it does not command its aspect ratio, so the first two shots are just thumbnails and not representative of the desired crop.

[Ally]

The areas of the Palm warbler that are a little under-exposed (despite the relatively good light) can be lightened further by selecting the dodge tool. Once again select a suitable tool size, about 1/3^rd the size of the bird’s breast, and go to the adjustment bar above and dial in an opacity setting of 30% and then open the “range” box to the left of opacity and select “shadow”. Painting the tool over the shadowy part of the bird will somewhat lighten it. Then select “midrange” in the range tool and brighten the lighter areas a little as well. That will probably do it. The rest can be adjusted from the image tool menu (also along the top tool bar). Open image, select adjustment, select either Brightness/Contrast, or Levels. They appear on the menu in that order from top to bottom. With levels you can increase of decrease either the highlights, the midrange, or the dark areas with a slider.






 

Unfortunately when I convert your image file to jpeg it does not command its aspect ratio, so the first two shots are just thumbnails and not representative of the desired crop.

Wow! you are a transformer.  Now I know where are those clean backgrounded bird portraits from. I was actually thinking about how many branches and twigs are there in my trail. You make them disappear!