[Leica] IMG: White-rumped Shama (repost)

[wildlightphoto at earthlink.net (Doug Herr)]

Bob Adler wrote:

>>>
I'm also curious, if you wouldn't mind sharing, how you masked the 
background from the Shama so well. Any technique you could share would be 
appreicated.
<<<

>________________________________
>From: Doug Herr <wildlightphoto at earthlink.net>
>
>(previous) http://www.wildlightphoto.com/temp/wrsh00.jpg
>
>(revised) http://wildlightphoto.com/birds/turdidae/wrsh00.jpg
>

Using a creaky old copy of PS6: adjustment layers (Curves in my case) 
include a default mask that encompasses the entire picture area.  Once I've 
made the adjustment layer I can erase part of the mask with the eraser tool. 
 If I make the adjustment layer for the background, I erase the 'bird' parts 
of the mask, using a large brush with 100% opacity far from edges, and 
successively smaller brushes at higher magnification & lower opacity near 
bird/background boundaries.  It gets really fussy where little tufts of 
feathers extend beyond clear boundaries so this can be really tedious to do 
well.  To review your mask you can go to the channels window and click on 
the check box to the left of the mask channel.  This is also handy for 
un-erasing where your initial erasure was too aggressive.

Once you've got the mask where you want it, duplicate the adjustment layer, 
invert the mask (Command-I) and apply the foreground adjustment curves to 
the duplicate adjustment layer.

Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com