We aspire to wildlife photography taking photographs of birds in the wild and it is great when an image is captured and is pleasing with only the basic post-processing. However there are often twigs/branches that detract from the image (subjective!). A question I sometimes pose is where to draw the line on post-processing. For minor leaf/twig removal I often use Lightroom. On some images which require more extensive work I export into Photoshop an uncropped 16 bit image (to minimise the lose of colour information) to apply more extensive (or selective) adjustments. I apply the adjustments to the full image in Photoshop in case I decide to change the crop dimensions. The edited image is available in Lightroom after saving and it is here that I apply the cropping. I have attached some images to illustrate the result.
- Sparrowhawk, Collared 2018-07-17 04 Original.jpg : uncropped image without adjustments (6720x4480)
- Sparrowhawk, Collared 2018-07-17 04-Edit.jpg : branch removal in Photoshop, some lightening of the bird in shadow (dodge tool) and then cropped in Lightroom (4329x2500)
- Sparrowhawk, Collared 2018-07-17 04.jpg : original image cropped in Lightroom (4329x2500)

In this example my preference is for the Photoshop edited image and the image which I would post on Birdlife Photogrpahy. The interesting question is should we state in the comments section that some elements of the image have been cloned out?

Good question David. For the BLP New Images gallery there is no rule against cloning out distracting picture elements so in the example you have given I see no reason why it would not be accepted for publication. It is good practice to mention that you have cloned out some distractions but I don't think it is a hanging offence if you don't mention it. I sometimes think it is pointless mentioning this kind of background adjustment unless you also show a 'before' image thereby leaving the viewer to decide whether the adjustment is OK.

In competition photography it is more important to be up front about cloning out distracting picture elements. These days most comps do not allow any use of the clone tool but our BLP comps do allow for minor adjustments which should be declared.. It is not easy to define what is a minor adjustment so I think it is up to the individual to make their own judgement. If we have any outrageous abuse then I expect the Committee will take some action. My preference is to avoid restrictive rules as much as possible unless we have a problem. An example of this occurred in the early days with a couple of members routinely submitting small images to our comps in order to gain the advantage of lower digital noise, better colour dynamic range and being able to hide other faults such as lack of sharpness. This gave an unfair advantage to those submitting small images so the Committee decided to make a rule that images in the Advanced comp must be 1400 px wide or 1050 px high.

By the way, the sky in your Sparrowhawk image looks unnaturally blue. Perhaps you did not see my article in the Newsletter on the subject.

Cheers,

Ian

Thanks Ian.
Also thanks for your comment on the sky. I did read your article, but obviously must re-read it!
Cheers
David

Hi Ian,
Jobs finished so spent a bit of time adjusting the blue sky in Photoshop. The RGB values of the sky in the images first posted are typically 72, 127, 212 which very considerably from the standard sky blue values of 98, 122, 157 in your article. For the benefit of all the approach adopted was as follows:
In Lightroom CTRL E to edit image in Photoshop, selecting edit original without Lightroom Adlustments
In Photoshop:
- Select>Colour Range...Used eyedropper to click on the blue sky. This did a reasonable job of selecting the sky
- Use the select mask to tidying up the selection
- Select > Save the selection (so that I can restore if need be)
- Create a new adjustment layer Hue/Saturation. This uses the selection to create a mask which applied the hue/Saturation adjustments just to the sky.
Using F8 to see the RGB values I made the following adjustments to give typical RGB values of 115, 143, 173. If you take the standard sky values away from these the differences are 21, 23, 18 so a bit of Mie scattering!
Hue -5
Saturation -60
Lightness +5

However this highlighted problems with the mask, particularly around the throat and leg feathers. It was necessary to re-edit in Photoshop by double clicking on the Hue/Saturation Layer Mask symbol and then using the brush to add/subtract to the selection and finally the Refine Edge Tool to allow the mask adjustments to apply to the sky between the "fluffy" feathers.

The resultant image is attached. A bit of an effort, but with practice I assume it would get easier/better/quicker. Certainly not something I would do to all my photos!!

As always appreciate your comments.
David
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I agree it is difficult to be black and white about cloning. We generally encourage people to shoot Raw and post process for better results, which immediately and deliberately introduces an element of intrusion into the final result. How far this is taken should ultimately be up to the photographer, but equally it is a matter for the relevant web site as to whether it is deemed acceptable for that web site (or that competition etc).

As Ian notes BLP accepts 'minor' cloning of distracting elements. For a website such as BLP, which has a strong element of conservation, I would suggest that images for the Main Library err towards accuracy of the scene rather than manipulation (this is my personal view, not necessarily a BLP Committee view). Presumably what we are trying to achieve generally is accurate depiction of the bird and the environment in which it lives. I would also suggest that disclosure occur, probably in the Comments box, to indicate that some cloning has taken place. This would not be intended on passing any judgement on the process, but merely for future reference such as if a conservation organisation wished to use the photo at some later date. The BLP website caters for other images through (for example) the Creative Images gallery, where members can place images with any amount of alteration, conversion to black and white etc, and this gallery is probably under-used. That said, I have submitted images with minor cloning on occasion particularly in situations where there are distractions on otherwise smooth backgrounds such as reflective water.

Its probably worth acknowledging that even if you don't clone, you can still use raw processing to make quite significant changes to the 'look and feel' of the photo. For example I would think it is relatively common practice amongst BLP members to work on photos to bring the bird subject more into prominence and blur the background either using heavy noise reduction or blur tools in their favourite processing workflow. Likewise even if you don't clone you can still use careful local adjustments using adjustment brushes to considerably reduce the impact of distracting elements in the background. I think a risk that comes with powerful software is that we try to resurrect far too many poor photos that are better consigned to the trash can (I put up my hand to this!). In the case of the photo attached to David's post, if it were mine it would be a 50/50 call as to whether I tried to fix it or just accepted it as a miss; there is a subjective and blurry line as to whether one should just accept that one didn't do a good enough job with camera. But that's just a personal perspective and I am still learning about what makes a good bird photo. As an aside I notice that the rules of the BLP's Australian Bird Photographer of the Year comp specifically disallow blurring.

Cheers
Simon

Hi David,

To correct the blues in Lightroom, all you have to do is open the HSL panel and select Luminance, then click on the dot in top left hand corner of panel and this will bring a little target symbol onto the screen instead of the cursor. Place the cursor on the blue color and click and hold the left button on mouse, NOW either drag down or push up on the mouse and you will see the blue colors only change. Keep moving the cursor up or down until you get the desired color, you will also see the color values change in the HSL panel as you move the cursor and the RBG values are listed underneath the histogram as usual. So much easier than making masks and all that stuff and it only effects the blues or whatever color you have the cursor on.

Bruce