Wildlife Photography across the Water: To Clone or to Heal

Friday 3 July 2009

To Clone or to Heal

This week i have processed about 300 images, All images needed some healing,a few cloning and some both-Whats the difference and why and when would you use these tools, The cloning tool does what it says,it clones or copies exactly and the healing brush works out what the pixels are like surrounding the brush and blends the area in so that the dust spot or whatever disappears,Dust is a digital photographers biggest pain, Dust removal systems built into some camera bodies help but dont totally irradicate dust and if you shoot with plain backgrounds like sky,snow or walls then dust will show up as grey dots-these are easily removed with the healing brush, But on a few images of mountain goats in snow i had a small piece of rock intruding into an edge of the image,if i tried to remove this with just the healing brush i would end up with a smudged colour so i had to clone a small line along the image edge then use the healing brush on all of the rock this gave a perfect removal, The same goes with anything that touches the image edge like a power cable running right across the image, Clone both ends then use the healing brush on the middle bit-here i would actually chop the cable up into small pieces with the clone tool and then use the healing brush on the smaller pieces,When i processed my fox images there was traces of dog food on some of the tree stump and i would clone some similar tree bark over this,if i had used the healing brush i would have ended up with smudged bark, I personally dont see a problem in removing small items in an image-enhancing it rather than changing it

Dave

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.