Apostolic Love

[Joeyjoe]

With hearing the flutter of birds outside, I ducked out for a quick backyard session of the morning visit of my local flock of Apostle birds. I got this shot, which cleaned up alright.
Any tips for removing the rainbow haze off the bird on the left's back? I tried inpainting/blemish tools, etc, but none had any luck in cleaning it up.
And one of my black chooks is striking a pose for me as well.

[wigz]

Well caught shot of the Apostlebirds. They look rather brown rather than grey so perhaps the colour balance is a little off.

Most of the magenta colour fringing looks like lateral chromatic aberration which should be easily fixable in your software. It’s actually around both birds. The brighter area along the back may be the same colour fringing enhanced by sensor blooming caused by the bright background, and might be harder to fix.

If you search for fixing colour fringing or lateral chromatic aberration you should find some help on fixing, or reducing it, with your software.

Your chook shot shows the difference good light and a cooperative subject can make to results. Excellent colour and detail.

[Joeyjoe]

I did hit the bird rather aggressively this time with the editing. I'll have a play around and wind it back a bit and try and work in the adjustments you mentioned.

[Joeyjoe]

I found the settings for the defringing, which cleaned up the edges well.
I also left the other adjustments unedited.

[Joeyjoe]

Here it is run through the free trial version of Topaz.
The bright reflection on the house in the background is proving to be an issue

[wigz]

That cleaned up better than I expected. Very bright areas in the background are always a problem. The bright area here is a relatively easy fix in Photoshop. Select the subject and add bits of the perch that were missed, invert the selection, and paste the grey background over it. I'll have a go when I have a bit of time - just to see if I can.

[Joeyjoe]

Thanks. I tried to cut out the birds and perch with the intent to post into into another background, but there were too many fine details around the edges to do a seamless clip

[wigz]

Joeyjoe Here is a quick fix version with the bright areas removed , shadows lifted and some detail enhancement and sharpening, using Photoshop and NIK Colour Efex and NIK Sharpener.

There is a bit of a halo around the birds but not too noticeeable.

[Joeyjoe]

Magnificent, thanks Alan.
I see some shadowing around the leaves, did you use a clone-type tool?

[wigz]

Yes, clone tool and I didn't pay much attention away from the birds. It's just an example. If I was serious I would also have cloned out the hose/irrigation bits.

[SharonH]

Lovely photos :-)