Hi everyone … it’s been a while since I’ve posted much - a SARS Cov-19 outbreak in my place of work (aged care) starting on Christmas Day and running for a month has been a distraction and a concern. However this week was a much-needed short stay-cation. I went to one of my favourite haunts where I often capture birds, but got quite a few of these Eastern water dragons as well. This is my favourite capture, but the light reflections on the right spoil it for me. I want to be able to process it enough to see the underwater portion of the tail well, and remove the distracting over-bright reflections. I’ve managed to get someway to what I would like with a gradient mask and lots of experimentation. (I tried a parametric mask on its own and in combination with the gradient without results that came close to this).
Over to you … is this salvageable? Or is it a case of poor location and framing by the photographer?
I don’t think you can correct that very well afterwards. At least not without a lot of effort.
For situations like this, polarization filter is your best friend.
However, scene has tempted me to test some GMI’C filters.
First I tried to neutralize the reflection to some extent in darktable:
And then in GIMP - after some dodging and burning - I used GMI’C filter inpaint (multi scale) to smooth the separation in the middle and at the end colour grading filter to change the colours and contrasts a bit:
Boris, thank you again … now with a fresh mug of flat white in the morning I can reply with more than a single word!
A polarization filter would certainly have been a great help - unfortunately I only have 55mm. The 95mm diameter one that would fit my Sigma lens that I used would pay for my grocery bill for 3 weeks. Maybe one day.
It seems that I will have to invest the time and effort into becoming proficient at GMI’C. I thank you for your effort, because the result is very pleasing.
Nice job…to me its likely still a lot of work for a big chunk of dead space…I think even if it looked okay a tighter crop is a nicer composition for this image…but it is nice to see what can be done…
Very nice job and a good example of what one can do to safe/restore an image if needed! Not sure if this specific one counts as such, but good to know it can be done.
