I love creative photo processing. This is one of the differences between Peter and me. He captures the beauty of nature and will rarely manipulate his images, I prefer to use my image as a starting point and see where I can take it with color, shadow, and light. This is one example, of an image that may have been tossed, but with a little experimentation turned out to be one that I like.
My initial capture was late in the day at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. I initially thought I would create an image with a blue sky, and a silhouette of the bird and saguaro.
As I started to work with it, cleaning up the edges and balancing the light, I added more blue and noticed more detail in the bird than I thought was there.
I wasn’t quite getting what I wanted with the blue color, so I decided to explore what Nik Color Effects Pro. This is my final image using a stack of effects: White Neutralizer + Foliage + Skylight + Pro Contrast + Darken/lighten Center. It is definitely a departure from my initial vision…..but that is the fun of creatively exploring alternatives.
pamphotography 