Do you find the background distracting?

[bajadreamer]

This is a Spotted Towhee, photographed shortly after dawn, in Oregon. The sun is coming over my shoulder and the background is about 30' behind the bird. All good there; unfortunately on the left side of the frame there is a large tree in the background that makes the background 2-tone. I have selectively lightened the left and darkened the right. I also cloned out a branch of the limb the bird is perched on. Question is: do you find the two tone BG distracting? Any thoughts on altering it? I do not want to cut the bird and perch out and totally replace the BG. The shot is not that good to spend that much time on, IMO.

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[DRwyoming]

I don't find the background that distracting and would probably leave it alone though I might try a different crop to off center the bird a bit more and perhaps lose some of the image above the bird.

 

[Grumpy]

Since you asked. If it were me I'd lighten up the left side to match the right side.

 

[jeffnles1]

First off, that's a nice photo of the towhee. well done. In wildlife photography we have to play with the hand we're dealt. The wild creatures go by their own schedules and go about living their lives totally unaware of our desires as photographers.

I do not find the background distracting. If I did anything to the photo I would darken the bright area behind the bird since our eyes tend to be drawn to bright areas but it is a photo of a wild creature in its natural environment. Sometimes nature is messy.

 

[Icarus]

Looks good to me. Background does not distract.

 

[DripDryMcFleye]

I think I would be tempted to try a non photo ratio crop that would reduce the amount of brown/orangish background on the left. Maybe I'd clone out the little twig that comes from out of nowhere at the bottom of the frame as well.

 

[gordon_g]

I don't find the background that distracting and would probably leave it alone though I might try a different crop to off center the bird a bit more and perhaps lose some of the image above the bird.

As Dave said!

I would also probably remove the lone twig as @DripDryMcFleye said.

 

[gbodave]

Not a problem for me.

 

[bajadreamer]

Thanks everyone for their thoughts. This is another edit of the same picture. Removing twig was no problem, I did recrop but retained the 3:2 original ratio. Darkening the right side was more difficult to do (at least with my PS skills). I did add a curve layer, inverted it, and brushed it on the right side. Did slightly reduce brightness, but to do so further really made it look funky.

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[Gongster]

Yeah that looks better, not a lot wrong with the original though IMO.

 

[DripDryMcFleye]

Looks nice! And avoided the dreaded "funky" too!

 

[bajadreamer]

Looks nice! And avoided the dreaded "funky" too!

Always a primary goal for me in editing.

 

[jeffnles1]

looks good. Like others said, not much wrong with the first photo.

 

[Saminpa]

Now that's awesome!!!!