Feeder Frenzy
Nikon 18-200 zoom, taken from inside my house while birds were at our feeder during the February 2010 blizzard. (Quite a difference from today at 70 degrees!) This image was assembled from at least 4 different shots of birds at the feeder with layers in CS2 and then added to a fifth image of the snowfall taken out a second floor window. I didn't "clone in" any birds that were not there, but just lengthened the feeder. You can see the actual feeder on the pole at the right of the image. I used Topaz filters to help with exposure adjustments and to reduce the noise. I had to bring up the shadowed area quite a bit because the birds were backlit, even though the light was even, and I ended up with a lot of blue edging on some of the wings and particularly the birds' feet. I was able to select the blue tones and reduce their saturation with the color replacement feature in CS2 without affecting the bluebirds' coloring too much.
Uploaded on February 17, 2011