Raven's Flight

thank god you are in the usa and not in London!!

 

Lol...you'll have to explain that to me.

 

they say if the ravens leave the tower of London, London will fall.

 

Thanks for the explanation, I did not know that.

 

apparently during the covid full lockdown the ravens at the tower were getting depressed because no one was coming to see them so the tower guards had to pretend to be visitors to keep them happy

 

Great action shot with good focus and DOF. What is your editing software and computer system? I'd like to offer some PP tips if you don't mind.

 

Ha, ha, ha...that's funny!

 

Thanks for your interest, I welcome any suggestion to improve my photo's. I transfer the images form camera to pc using a built-in card reader, I then review and delete/save and convert using DPP. After conversion I open them in Photoshop version CS. All pp are done in Photoshop as best I can get it, keep in mind I am an amateur at best. I have Windows 8.1.

 

I would be interested with what you have to suggest with this image.

Gary

 

I also use Windows (10 Pro) and I'm sure you can still upgrade free to Windows 10. I do the same, transfer to a folder from card and then view and cull before editing in Windows. I use Faststone Image Viewer to view and can load CR2 and CR3 raw files straight into Photoshop for editing, no conversion necessary. If you want some cool actions, easy download from my website HERE.

To me the sky looked really grainy so I thought I would try and fix it. Also the raven just needed a shadows lift. Here's what I did in PS (CC2020) which should work in CS versions as well.
First duplicate the BG (Ctrl+J) and convert it to a Smart Object. Then make a selection of the bird using the Quick Selection tool and add a layer mask. I then refined the mask by zooming in close and painting with a small brush (Black to hide and White to reveal). White on the layer mask will show the underlying layer and Black will hide from the underlying layer. It's a great way to remove the light halos as well like you see on the left of the tail feathers. I then made a new layer under the masked layer and filled it using the Gradient tool (linear) with 2 shades of blue (FG: #6b91cf and BG: #82a9e8). This makes a nice blue sky, which gets lighter as it heads toward the horizon. These colours are only suggestions, you can use any colours you like.
I then added a Shadows/Highlights adjustment layer with the settings below:

This is the new gradient sky" and showing the layers I used.

I dropped in a sky under the mask just to add some interest.

Take lots of different sky photos just for this purpose.
I hope this is helpful for you. If you need any Photoshop help just let me know, I'm always willing to help out. Cheers.

 

OMG! That last one with the wispy clouds really made the bird "pop". But I must admit all that PS work is way beyond my capability and knowledge. What little I know is a lot! Thanks for your input.

 

Impressive stuff Isac. I have actually copied the info for reference at a latter date.

Gary

 

That's great Gary, I can help out any time you need some tricks.

 

I'm glad you like the edits porkphoto. I've been learning PS since 1992 so it's second nature now (but still learning).