Red-capped Plover variations

[Alan]

Taken at Brou Lake recently

#1 Blur


#2 Oil


#3 Original

[loose cannon]

The blur version is a standout for me. Hard to keep my eye on the bird in the other two as the surrounds are quite distracting, less so with the oil version but the blur still wins.

Lovely colours and dripping with cuteness.

[P Plates]

#1 for me also, and looks like it was windy with that ruff of feathers sitting up on its neck. How do you do your selection to add blur to the background Alan? When I first saw #1 I thought it must have been the original - looks very natural. I've tried this but have never been happy with the result - always seems to scream "she's blurred the background in PS".

[Alan]

Thanks Mick,

That's exactly why I blurred it

Thanks Glenda, this is how I do it - probably other better ways

Duplicate layer.

I use various methods to select the bird (and rock or branch it might be standing on), most often with the 'Quick Selection' tool, then refine the edges with the quick mask and pen and eraser. Magnetic lasso is another way. Maybe 'feather' the selection so it doesn't look so cut out

I then 'cut' the bird out. I find if I leave the bird in and then do the 'Motion Blur' the birds colour 'bleeds' into the blurred b/g.

Then use the lasso tool to surround the 'cut out'

Then 'delete' using 'content aware' mode - this fills that cut out with the background which will blur looking more natural

Use Motion Blur and adjust effect to suit

Then I paste the bird back

Then as an extra touch if you want, adjust opacity of the top layer so you can see the unblurred one beneath, and with the eraser, carefully erase over the bits of b/g that you'd like to show through eg rocks in the water that shouldn't be blurred and also tidy up the bird.

Then bring the opacity of top layer back to 100%

PM me if it's not clear or doesn't work

Have fun

Cheers

EDIT - I just realised that all you were asking was how to select the bird.

I presume you then apply some Gaussian blur to the b/g - not the motion blur - but someone might find the above useful.

There are lots of tutes out there on selecting parts of images which will be much more useful than my rough methods

[P Plates]

Thanks Alan. I actually found it very useful and have had a go. Cutting the bird out, filling then blurring made a huge difference. I was just selecting and then adding blur which never looked good and left a quite obvious edge to the blur.

[Gaz]

Another strong vote for No.1 here...very effective.