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What to do with a distracting background? (1 Viewer)

safariranger

safariranger

Well-known member
Hi, I recently took this photo of a Spotted Eagle Owl. An ok shot I suppose but I find the background very distracting, and am wondering if there is a way one can clean up the background?
Ideally if I could remove the branch running from the top right behind the bird and replace it with more of the green and yellow tones like that in the top left then I think the photo would look a lot better.
I am processing photos in CS5 at the moment.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
 

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  • A82B0779 - Spotted Eagle Owl - Bubo africanus - Nelspruit - 11.01.2013 - 1 .jpg
    A82B0779 - Spotted Eagle Owl - Bubo africanus - Nelspruit - 11.01.2013 - 1 .jpg
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I think it is fine as it is, it shows the bird in context. The trend to show birds in isolation can go to far and they end up lookings like guide book illustrations.
 
I'd clean it up at least a little, at a minimum cloning out the out-of-focus branches above the main branch on the left side; ditto for the largish branch (with patches of sky showing through) below the main branch on the right.
 
A nice picture but I tend to agree about the two small areas of sky showing through. They tend to distract from the bird itself.

Tony
 
As a photo, its fine as it is. not much that could have been done on the background if the bird was stationary and thats where he decided to place his mits lol

Now the question arises, on whether to view the photo as a purist and say, 'its fine as it is (which it is) or to edit it and remove / patch some distracting elements. The eternal dilemma.
 
I think this question comes down to personal taste and preferences and my take is to leave as taken. Birds more often than not, don't happen to sit out against perfect backgrounds so I prefer to capture the memory as-taken.

This is a nice image and if you wanted to improve then, yes there are things that can be cloned out. In my case, I have opted to do this in only a few sitautions where the distracting branch or leaf otherwise obsures the bird in some significant way and as a record shot, it's all I could get.

The reason I tend not to doctor backgrounds as such is that I fear it could become the thin-end of the wedge and with the right PS skills (which I don't really have by the way!) I could end up with a bird shown in a completely different context to the one that it existed when photographed.

If this image were mine, I'd be chuffed with the way it is :t:
 
I think it's STUNNING and perfect just like it is. I didn't even notice the bright patches of sky until they were pointed out, I was so drawn to the owl.

Funny how differently several people can view the same thing. :)

If you want to edit it, however, I also agree that the clone stamp would be my choice of tools.
 
safariranger said:
Ideally if I could remove the branch running from the top right behind the bird and replace it with more of the green and yellow tones like that in the top left then I think the photo would look a lot better.
I am processing photos in CS5 at the moment.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I would go the other way round, i.e darken the bright parts in the background.
I like the branch running down behind the owls, as owls are not perched out in the open. It also creates some depth.
By darkening the upper left corner (burn tool) and the white spots to the right (cloning) of the owl you could relatively eliminate distractions based on differences in brightness and contrast and get a more balanced image without lots of cloning and other massive image alterations.


My $0.02

Ulli
 
Save up for a 300mm f2.8 lens and throw the background more out of focus as taken!

In the real world - a super photo, I can't say I'd change it.
 
I'm a bit late rainger, and as posted by others, the photo is pretty damn good as is. Personal preferences come into play, and you get differing answers

If you wanted to make any improvements though, IMO, I would kill some of bright over exposed patches, and adjust ( increase ) some exposure on the bird only, while darkening the background a tad. This helps to slightly make the bird jump a bit more out of the photo.

Having done that, i'm not sure it was worth it, as I too like the photo. I would only have done the changes to my own photo
 

Attachments

  • Spotted Eagle Owl .jpg
    Spotted Eagle Owl .jpg
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Mono said:
I think it is fine as it is, it shows the bird in context. The trend to show birds in isolation can go to far and they end up lookings like guide book illustrations.
Click to expand...

I agree that you should not worry about the background as much. Too much photoshop is like too much makeup.
 
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