Night Hawk

What a beautiful shot Jeff. You know how much I love the moon, this photo is so well composed. Photoshop? Maybe I would work a little on the contrast to make darker the black and more brilliant the white. Ciao.

Just a little example, but it's only my taste, of course.

Thanks Rita, I appreciate your comments...yes this was a compilation of two separate shots. I took the one of the hawk in the tree across from my house a few weeks ago in daylight. I desaturated it and masked out the background. This allowed me to overlay in on the shot of the moon that I captured the other day too. I've been playing around with it to see what looks best...I've attached another version with the contrast bumped up some more...what do you think. Also I'll play around with the contrast a bit too and see how it turns out. Thanks. Jeff.

Very nice work Jeff. It is nice to see you stretch your photoshoppin' legs. I like both versions. I look forward to more of this genre. Are you done with the ratings system?

Thanks Tiffany, I draw much inspiration from your recent efforts...I just wish I possessed your technical/creative prowess. Your new series with Jason & P Necks is very edgy and cool. I'm still experimenting with the rating system...did you see the recent forum entry discussing the change in the critique forum? Not sure yet if this is good or bad.

Thank you Jeff! I think that I like the new system. I am hoping that it balances out some of the optimum time posting issues.

My third viewing, Jeff, the first two were from an uncalibrated monitor that made this look just awful - I couldn't view the top and bottom 10% of blacks and whites, only compressed midtones. Now that it's reasonably calibrated, I see an imaginative composite ready for the approaching Halloween season. :-)

Thanks Michael...my kids do indeed love Halloween...I played around with several variations but this one seemed best to me...thanks for the comments.

This is a composite of two shots...I took the shot of the moon a few

weeks ago and then separately shot the Hawk out in front of my house

during the day time. I used Vertus' Fluid Mask to mask out the

background leaving just the tree and the hawk and then desaturated it

cranking up the contrast all the way. When I combined them I tried to

leave just enough difference in the blacks to ensure that the limbs were

visible in dark part of the image. I'm still learning PS and would

appreciate any advice/critiques to improve this image. By the way if

you notice the lump on the hawk's right side near the limb, this is a

small rodent that it had captured and was eating when I took the original

picture. Thanks for looking.

Nice job, Jeff. You've had better luck with Fluid Mask than I have. I just can't seem to get it to do what I want... but I'm still learning too. I really like the spooky feeling to this image.

Oh, what a shot !!

Wow! That is awesome. Nice work

... very good shot ... 6/6 ... anon ...

I like that you took two shot to make this shot. I love the end result.. Bravo.....;-)

Very nice- I like the black and white and the whole composition. Congratulations! Linda

Wonderful image! I love the details you captured in the moon and the silhouette is beautifully done. my only suggestion is regarding the noise. there is a lot of noise in the moon and little to none elsewhere. I think a combination of reducing and adding noise would ballance it better. Regardless though, this is beautiful.

I think you did a terriffic job with this 2 images. Specially with limithe PS experience. Outstanding image.

Congrats,

Alex

This is a really nice composition and an excellent edition work. Congratulations.

I had to comment... I really like this shot. 

 

Thanks,

 

David

great shot, seems like a scene straight out of a movie. Tried a shot like this before, but did come close to yours. Very cool

Well Done!