Observing the Local Terrain

As I stated on Flickr, these Abdim’s Storks are huge and they were not real happy about being in a rather crowded aviary at the Jacksonville Zoo. So at their request, here they are in a more appropriate setting. They seem to be quite comfortable now. First in Lightroom Serge Ramelli’s Safari Warm Dramatic Light preset was used – then adjusted his Graduated Filters and Radial Filters before bringing them into Photoshop. (For presets go to his video called How to Edit Amazing Landscape Photos in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.) The birds were selected using the Quick Select Tool and the Select and Mask command. Then to find a good background, I used one of Serge’s free skies called Blue Morning from his his video called Replace the Sky in 2 minutes using Photoshop Libraries. I did create a PS Library Group for these skies and added a few of my own. Then just some clean up and an Eye Exposure Adjustment Layer. Nik Viveza 2 was used to even out the color tones in their bodies and last step was a Curves Adjustment Layer. I think they look much happier……Digital Lady Syd