Horned Lark | Eremophila alpestris | Alouette hausse-col
A roadside bird at dawn on Christmas Eve. You really can't go wrong with a snowy backdrop. The only trick with this photo is that I was shooting into the rising sun so the eye was in the shade and dead black - until I created a modest catchlight by using Lightroom to clone in a spot from the bird's cap.
There's probably only two or three images on my photostream where I've cheated in this way. What I do is selectively lighten the eye until I have a sense of its brightest point. That's where I clone in the catchlight. Through trial and error I've learned to make it very, very small - and not pure white. A big glowing dot looks totally fake. That's why I borrowed from the cap, the more subdued tan creates an air of plausibility. As a final point, I also clone from a two-toned place, lighter on top, darker on the bottom. That creates an asymmetrical, and perhaps more realistic, catchlight.
Horned Lark | Eremophila alpestris | Alouette hausse-col
A roadside bird at dawn on Christmas Eve. You really can't go wrong with a snowy backdrop. The only trick with this photo is that I was shooting into the rising sun so the eye was in the shade and dead black - until I created a modest catchlight by using Lightroom to clone in a spot from the bird's cap.
There's probably only two or three images on my photostream where I've cheated in this way. What I do is selectively lighten the eye until I have a sense of its brightest point. That's where I clone in the catchlight. Through trial and error I've learned to make it very, very small - and not pure white. A big glowing dot looks totally fake. That's why I borrowed from the cap, the more subdued tan creates an air of plausibility. As a final point, I also clone from a two-toned place, lighter on top, darker on the bottom. That creates an asymmetrical, and perhaps more realistic, catchlight.