Photoshop Tutorial: Adding Canvas

Cara Cara in flight, Viera Wetlands
1/640 | f/7.1 | ISO 320 | 700 mm

It's rare that I capture a bird in flight and am happy with the composition of the image. Most of the time, they are right in the middle of the image (that's where I have my autofocus sensor). And if they were close, then I probably didn't leave enough room for them to "fly into". In this tutorial, I'll show you what I do to fix this problem.

Before & After: Lesser Yellowlegs

1/500 | f/6.3 | ISO 320 | 700 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Before & After: Eastern Kingbird

1/320 | f/10 | ISO 1000 | 1000 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Before & After: Red-Winged Blackbird

1/320 | f/11 | ISO 320 | 1000 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Before & After: Reddish Egret

1/800 | f/6.3 | ISO 320 | 700 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Before & After: Double Crested Cormorant

1/320 | f/11 | ISO 400 | 1000 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

3 image exposure blend (2/5, 1/10, 1/40) | f/8 | ISO 200 | 16 mm

I just had to capture the cracks on the ground. The lack of water was a common theme throughout the refuge, as it has been a uncharacteristically dry season this year. I couldn't help but see all of the texture and think it would make a great photograph. 


As soon as I took one shot and glanced at the histogram, I knew that I would need more than one exposure to capture the entire dynamic range. I bracketed and took 3 images, 2 stops apart. My goal was to keep it as realistic as possible, and I think I did just that.

Before & After: White Ibis

1/1250 | f/5.6 | ISO 400 | 700 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing to get to the after ...

Before & After: Bald Eagle

1/1250 | f/6.3 | ISO 560 | 700 mm

Read on to see the before and the processing that got me to the after ...

The Reddish Run

1/800 | f/6.3 | ISO 320 | 700 mm

One of my favorite parts about birding is learning the behavior of a species. This past weekend I had the chance to observe and photograph a Reddish Egret at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (FL). 

Viera Wetlands

1/100 | f/9 | ISO 200 | 14 mm

Just got back from a trip to the Viera Wetlands in Melbourne, FL. The main purpose of the trip was to capture new bird species (well, new to me), but I couldn't help but capture a couple of landscape images along the way. With over a thousand images to sort through, I'll try to post a couple every day this week, so stay tuned!

Noise Reduction

1/400 | f/5.6 | ISO 1600 | 400mm

Applying noise reduction is one of the first steps that I take when processing an image. While the results from reducing noise in a global sense (attempting to reduce the noise from the entire image at once) can be effective, I prefer to use layers and layer masks to apply different noise reduction settings to different parts of the image.

Before & After: Osprey

1/2000 | f/4 | ISO 800 | 500mm

Today I share my process to go from the out of camera photograph to what you see above. I start off with an NEF (Nikon's raw file) and process everything in the trial version of Photoshop CS6. 

Black-necked Stilt

1/1600 | f/5.6 | ISO 360 | 700mm

A little bit of patience goes a long way when photographing birds. I'd been out to Newnan's Lake on two but it wasn't until this day that I finally got some good shots of the black-necked stilt. 

Photoshop Frame Tutorial

Adding a simple matte and frame to can help visually enhance the image when trying to show it off on your blog, portfolio, or website. It can also help in visualizing what the photo will look like once it's framed. Whatever the intent, in this tutorial I explain how to add a simple matte/frame and a title to any image.

Greater or Lesser?

1/1250 | f/5.6 | ISO 500 | 700mm

How do you identify a bird that could either be a greater or a lesser yellowlegs? Easy, you make sure that you go shooting with Barbara and Kim :)