Jay today

elvis

elvis

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Went up to my local haunt "wyevale woodland reserve" just outside hereford where they have a hide set up about 20yds from a feeding station saw great spotted woodpeckers and also for the first time managed to get a few shots of a jay which made my weekend what a beautiful bird its hard to believe its a member of the crow family well pleased with these shots considering how far i was from them.

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I like these alot(y)
 
Excellent shots of a pretty bird Elvis. They look like you've run noise reduction on the whole image though which is losing you a lot of feather detail?

If you can run noise reduction just on the bg, it's usually far preferable as the noise on the bird itself is usually largely masked by the feather detail. It's the plainer areas on the bg where the noise really shows up.

These are really good shots mate, but they could almost certainly look a whole lot better. If you want to stick an original up I'll be happy to have a go at it for you. :)
 
cheers CT i did run them through noiseware community edition but i dont know if it wiil allow me just to do the background, posting an original to see what you can do with it many thanks.
 
I agree with CT. Nice composition, nice colours, but the heavy-handed noise reduction really spoils them for me.
 
I thought i'd post the originals without the NR, comments welcome as always, how do i NR just the background, and what software do i need?

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These are excellent elvis, The best "Jay" shots I have seen on these forums..:clap:
 
Elvis you can use selective NR with Paint Shop Pro, probably CS2, (I dont have it installed at the moment to check)

The basic technique is to select the magic wand tool. Then hold down control and keep incrementally clicking on your background. You'll see your mask marquee growing with each click. You may have to vary the sensitivity of the magic wand on areas where the contrast varies a lot. If at any time the mask overlaps onto the bird just go to 'Edit' and undo the last click, lower the sensitivity and carry on - just make sure you keep the control key on your keyboard pressed throughout.

You can also draw a mask around the bird manually and then invert it so that the background is selected, but this is much trickier and you get a tighter mask with the incremental method.

This bg isn't particularly easy, but it's do-able so have a go. if you don't have a NR filter in your processing package try using a soften or blur tool on a low setting for a similar result.

I'll have go at one of the pics for you and post it later. :)
 
Incidentally, the noise in these shots is far from what I'd consider excessive and you could still sharpen these a fair bit.
 
CT said:
Incidentally, the noise in these shots is far from what I'd consider excessive and you could still sharpen these a fair bit.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I was expecting to see much more noise in the original.

BTW, IN photoshop, you can do the magic wand without the control key, just select 'add to' icon from the tool bar after clicking on the magic wand tool.

Also, if you are more generous than me, and have paid for the licenced plug in version on Noiseware, you can do the selection and invert, then run noise ware as a filter on only the background.... so I may yet buy a licence. ;)
 
Elvis, all I've done with this is sharpened the image and slightly tweaked the levels.

Elvis1.jpg


I don't think you ever really had a noise problem to be honest. The sharpening has made the noise more noticeable, but I still don't think it's intrusive at all. However, I will do NR on the BG for you and post it later. ( got visitors at the moment)
 
That Jay is wonderful, for many it is a bird that is rarely seen :crying:, so this is wonderful :clap:
 
With NR run just on the bg Elvis and some USM sharpening.

Elvis_NR.jpg


Incidentally when you're using the magic wand as described above, as long as you keep Control depressed, you can switch to the lasso tool to select large difficult areas, and back again to the magic wand as you need to.

Lovely bird the Jay, I haven't seen one for ages. They're a member of the Corvid family along with Crows and Magpies and are on the vermin list. :shrug:
 
thank you all for your comments especially CT, as they say on x factor i will try and take it on board and learn from it
 
Great set John. very pretty bird and nicely captured :clap:
 
Nice shots Elvis :clap: and good edits CT of a very colourful
bird.
My Daughter and i had been watching young Great tits being fed by the parents for about 30 minutes when a Jay swooped in picked up and shook to death 2 chicks before flying of with the last chick, this happened in a matter of seconds and i presume it was going to return for the other two. This was very hard for me to watch but my daughter who was 9 at the time did not understand and was mortified, 4 years later she still growls when she sees a Jay. I will never convince her that they are not vermin.
 
Tis nature in the end Mitch although it's hard to accept sometimes. I watched a load of Crows mobbing and killing young ducks on the river at Lichfield a few years ago. It was just wanton slaughter, they weren't even eating them. I was doing a lot of shooting back then and would have given my right arm for a shotgun. They say we shouldn't interfere and it's probably right but it's not always easy. :shrug:
 
I think Jays are in the same category as Magpies... lovely to look at but bullies of the bird world. Like CT says though, that's nature.

I always find it amusing that if someone sees a Sparrowhawk taking a sparrow, people are reaching for the cameras saying 'WOW'.... yet if a Jay does the same, they're evil birds :LOL:
 
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