Another Crop Question

[bajadreamer]

I thought with the Canon R5 eye focus/tracking, that my composition problems would be over. Oh, not so! If anything I get more frustrated. Anyway, here is the scenario. This bird, a Scarlet-bellied Tanager, visited this water each morning to bath. Keeping the rising sun to my back (it was usually cloudy, and often foggy) I could not get any higher. Therefore the lip of the rock in the foreground could not be taken out of the frame. The bird's feet were only visible in a few shots like this one (if I tried to get lower the feet would be obscured). Questions for you: How much does the OOF rock detract from the picture for you? Any suggestions (short of cloning it away which would be a major chore)? Any other suggestions? Shot with a 600 mm, R5, SS 1/800, ISO 6400, f/5.6 at a distance of about 30'. This shot has already been cropped from the right and bottom at 3:2; about 75% of the original image remains.

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[Replytoken]

If you are willing to crop further, I would take a bit off of the right and the bottom in proportion, but just a bit. The colors of the bird help set it off nicely. The branch behind its head does break the flow a bit for me.

Good luck,

--Ken

 

[DRwyoming]

Any other suggestions?

Well just playing here, but I cropped most of that out of focus foreground out, did a bit of canvas stretch and fill using Steve's Free Transform trick and then used the patch tool to clean up a bit of that foreground that still remained.

Not perfect as a 5 minute edit but here's what that looks like:

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[edit] Yeah, clearly rushed that as it doesn't quite work but you get the idea

 

[bleirer]

The main distractor is the blob bottom right. The area below the feet looks like part of the story as in the bird is near water. The distractor above the head could be fixed with content aware fill or the patch tool in content aware mode.

 

[AstroEd]

Remember I am a very new beginner but to me the lip in front gives more depth or 3D feel to the image story where the bird comes to a pool of water, where the bottom cropped out looks like it is standing on a plain wet rock.

Am I being ignorant in my observation? Still trying to learn the art of image composition.

 

[DRwyoming]

Am I being ignorant in my observation? Still trying to learn the art of image composition.

We all see differently so there's no real right or wrong but a bright and very out of focus object right in the foreground of the image is generally considered distracting and forms a bit of a barrier that might detract from the viewer looking into the image. Sure there's lot's of ways to creatively break those kinds of conventions but to me at least that out of focus area doesn't help the image.

 

[AstroEd]

We all see differently so there's no real right or wrong but a bright and very out of focus object right in the foreground of the image is generally considered distracting and forms a bit of a barrier that might detract from the viewer looking into the image. Sure there's lot's of ways to creatively break those kinds of conventions but to me at least that out of focus area doesn't help the image.

I keep going back and forth between the 2 and the un-cropped image my eyes hit the blurry bottom briefly at first and then slide up to the bird and the cropped my eyes fall on the large upper right branch first and slides over to the bird so I see what you mean now.

 

[Duff Photographer]

...

 

[Woodyg3]

I like Duff's crop, it's an interesting composition that way.

You could try getting rid of the rock lip by selecting it in Photoshop and doing a content aware fill. I would also crop in a bit more.

You could also leave as is and just darken the out of focus rock so it is less noticeable.

 

[bajadreamer]

if you are willing to crop further, I would take a bit off of the right and the bottom in proportion, but just a bit. The colors of the bird help set it off nicely. The branch behind its head does break the flow a bit for me.

Good luck,

--Ken

I do see your point. I have tweeked the crop a number of times. My problem is whether or not a sliver of the OOF rock is better or worse than a major view of it.

 

[bajadreamer]

Well just playing here, but I cropped most of that out of focus foreground out, did a bit of canvas stretch and fill using Steve's Free Transform trick and then used the patch tool to clean up a bit of that foreground that still remained.

Not perfect as a 5 minute edit but here's what that looks like:
View attachment 26663

[edit] Yeah, clearly rushed that as it doesn't quite work but you get the idea

I forgot about Steve's free transfer video. I am going to have to review that. Over the 4 days that I stayed at this lodge I have dozens of species of birds that visited this water and many of my images suffer from the same problem-the OOF rock lip of the pool.

 

[bajadreamer]

The main distractor is the blob bottom right. The area below the feet looks like part of the story as in the bird is near water. The distractor above the head could be fixed with content aware fill or the patch tool in content aware mode.

I tend to agree with you. I am going to work on that area + the large branch above the bird and see what that does. I have become so "focused" on my OOF foreground that I lost sight of those areas and how distracting they were.

 

[bajadreamer]

Nope, the blurred area does not detract, particularly if you crop it to a 2:1 (e.g., 5x10 or whatever). The resulting image has the branch in the top left which then balances out the blurred rock curving up along the bottom right. This also places the bird in a nice position looking into the space. I was cheeky, downloaded, edited, and posted the re-edited image below (I've deleted it from my PC)

Nice image by the way

View attachment 26669

Cheers,
Duff.

Thank you for your thoughts. My images never see the light of day other than on my computer, so your efforts to improve the image are appreciated. Never a problem for me; otherwise I would not post in a Critique forum. It is a beautiful bird, isn't it? This is one of my better images of the species, hence my desire to overlook the faults of the overall image.

 

[bajadreamer]

I like Duff's crop, it's an interesting composition that way.

You could try getting rid of the rock lip by selecting it in Photoshop and doing a content aware fill. I would also crop in a bit more.

You could also leave as is and just darken the out of focus rock so it is less noticeable.

Thank you for your thoughts. I have darkened the entire scene other than the bird. I agree with you that it helps to keep your eyes on the bird. Maybe I will go back and see if I can darken the OOF rocks again and see what that does.

 

[bleirer]

Thank you for your thoughts. I have darkened the entire scene other than the bird. I agree with you that it helps to keep your eyes on the bird. Maybe I will go back and see if I can darken the OOF rocks again and see what that does.

It would be fairly easy to move that branch above the head to the left a little, maybe ending about mid body so no longer sticking out of the head. One way would be to make a copy of the layer, then, ctrl T to get the transform tool, slide it left, new layer mask filled with black (alt when clicking new layer mask button) then careful selection and painting the mask with white.

There probably is an easier way, content aware fill maybe, or patch tool in content aware mode.

 

[Aussie Geoff]

I am a novice so reading peoples idea's on how to improve the photo help me a lot. I like to look at the photo and see what I would change then read what other people say to see if I am getting there or not. My first fort of the picture is totally different to every else as I fort the birds legs blended in with the rocks around him.