Birdbath Fishing

So much for a nice peaceful day fishing.

Good Friday kids...

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Caution Tech Stuf: This was a fun 4 shot setup. This might have gone super quick if the sun hadn't disappeared right when I needed to take my shot. Oh the dangers of shooting outside. Here's how the component shots look.

Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3

I should explain that while I was doing this our entire subdivision is having a large garage sale.

10 hours later: I was asked how it was done. Here's the recipe:

From a tripod outside my house I took a bunch of pictures of the bird splashing around. I shot it with a radio remote from inside the house so I wouldn't frighten him. I picked my favorite shot. The little bird was in the wrong place so I covered him up with another shot when he wasn't there. Think of it as a patch. Then I took a cutout of the bird sitting on top from a 3rd shot pasted him onto the main group shot. So now I have 3 layers. The splashing robin, the little bird on the top and a patch to cover where the little bird was. Since the shots were all taken within seconds of each other and exposures constant they blend well. I take a soft eraser brush and soften the lines of the cutouts so they blend smoothly. I take a shot of the boat and trace around it and cut it out and paste the cutout into the composite where I want it. Like before I erase the hard edge of the cutout so it blends smoothly into the main composite. Now I take the shot of me and cut me out so that it's just me and my fishing pole. I paste the cutout of me only onto the composite image. I'm way to big so I reduce my size and while doing that move me into the boat. Now I'm sitting in the boat but my legs and feet are showing. I carefully erase my legs and feet up to the top side of the boat so it now looks like I'm inside the boat, not on top. From there it's mild edge clean up, a crop, a little exposure adjustment and finish off with a mild sharpening. All together 5 layers and one adjustment layer. And that's how it's done...


Enjoy...