Golden Eagle
John Yarrow
I was very excited to take an image of a golden eagle flying in the UK, particularly as it made eye contact with me.
Problems: The original was too small in the frame, too dark (particularly in the shadows) and there were white spots on the plumage.
It had an unsightly GPS tracker on its back, an aerial trailing behind the bird and the sharpness was a bit off.
Remedial action:
(a) Cropped the image in Lightroom.
(b) Improved the sharpness a little using Topaz AI Sharpening.
(c) In Lightroom the shadows were lightened, clarity was increased and exposure was increased locally in the bird’s right eye.
(d) In Photoshop the spot healing brush was used to remove the trailing aerial and the clone tool was used to disguise the GPS tracker.
(e) Still in Photoshop, the white marks on some feathers were removed with the spot healing brush and the clone tool was used around the edge of the bird to remove a white halo.
(f) Back in Lightroom some very small adjustments were made to the exposure, contrast and clarity until it looked ‘right’.
Note: This image could never be used in a nature or wildlife competition; my editing has not respected the ’truth’ of the original image.
However, it did win me a bar of chocolate in Mandy’s Lucky Dip Competition.