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Missed the birds!Help with adding birds to a Sunrise please...

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Posted by Robert: Thu Dec 28th, 2017 18:53

1^st Post

Christopher and I went to Kielder yesterday, returned this morning, that's an event on it's own but Chris wanted to capture a Sunrise on our way home, so I raced back from Kielder, to be back here to be ready for the 8:30 Sunrise.

We got several really nice pix, the Sun was up and rising, little more to do so I started putting the gear away when Chris yelled look at the birds... A large skein of Geese flew up the Leven estuary. About 180 birds, just as I was putting the D300 away. I grabbed the camera and let off a few exposures but the camera was still on 7 frame 0.7 bracketing from the sunrise... So I have a bunch of photo's of them with perhaps two usable. There is about one and a half minutes between the Sunrise and the Geese exposures!

I want to combine a picture of the geese and the best of the sunrise into one image. The birds are largely black or close to it.

What I don't know is how best to extract the birds from the sky background, I know I can squash them and place them on a layer in front of the main image OK, but it's how to extract the relatively small birds from the sky background without spending an age cutting each one out and yet to make it look realistic.

The best of the sunrise pix... D300S Nikkor 18-105@ 18mm, 2500/sec f10, ISO400

Flock of Geese... D300S Nikkor 18-105@ 62mm, 250/sec f10, ISO400

____________________
Robert.

Posted by jk: Fri Dec 29th, 2017 03:15

2^nd Post

Very nice Robert.
Top image is very good.

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Still learning after all these years!
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Posted by Robert: Fri Dec 29th, 2017 07:20

3^rd Post

OK, done it, In Photoshop, selected the sky with the magic selector tool deleted that and then erased the remaining background detail. Saved it back to Lr.

Back to Lightroom Classic, selected both the main image and the Geese images. Command 'E' opened both as layers in Ps. Selected the Geese layer, transparency 50%, warped the geese until they were suitably positioned then to Levels, lifted the transparency to 0% boosted the contrast and blacks of the Geese so they stood out.

Saved back to Lr as a TIFF. Posted here.

Mmmm... Geese seem to have 'halo's', that isn't ideal... o.O

Maybe not? My eyes perhaps...

____________________
Robert.

Posted by jk: Sat Dec 30th, 2017 02:51

4^th Post

Did you feather the bird selection?

____________________
Still learning after all these years!
https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none

Posted by Robert: Sat Dec 30th, 2017 04:53

5^th Post

jk wrote:
Did you feather the bird selection?
No, just took what the magic selection tool gave me. Output as a TIFF, I forgot and didn't flatten it either so the layers will still be in the TIFF but Lightroom doesn't do layers so I didn't think it mattered. I could go back and flatten it I guess... That might help.

I have uploaded it to my Portfolio and it's available much larger there, there is no sign of the halo's in the portfolio image which is exactly the same source as the image here, via Flicker.

____________________
Robert.

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