Bird on the Prowl

This Blue Heron image which was taken at Mount Dora, Florida, looks a little scraggly and I wonder if he has just gotten his adult plumage. That actually made it a little hard to post-process the image, so I decided to help him along a little bit with a few strokes of the Mixer brushes in Photoshop. Used On1 Photo Raw 2018 Effects (see sidebar for website link) to sharpen him up a little (the Dynamic Contrast and Sharpen filters at default settings does wonders on an image). Then on a stamped layer used Topaz Studio (see sidebar for website link) to get a more interesting background (used Impression with Chalk Smudge II along with Precision Contrast to just the background and AI ReMix for the more modern looking edges in the water). Added my favorite Color Lookup preset – Foggy Night at 78% opacity. From here it was just adding layers to clean him up a little. It was fun to do one of my favorite bird subjects again!…..Digital Lady Syd