How I Edited this Blue Heron Image

I thought I’d share my edits on this image of a Blue Heron that I took this afternoon.

Here is the original image, pretty much straight out of the camera (I shoot in RAW, so this is a jpeg version).

This was my best image from a group of about thirty shots I took of the Heron, must were just standing so not very interesting.

The fist things I do in Lightroom are to adjust for the lens and then fix any white balance and color issues. I also cropped the image a lot and added a little contrast. For this image I also lightened the birds head, neck and legs a little. My finished edits looked like this:

I liked this finished look, but wanted the background to be a little more blurry or abstract. I have been using Topaz’s Impression 2 plug-in for a while and thought I would try that. I tried several preset paint effects in Topaz and finally settled on a basic Painting effect. I then added a mask to the Heron’s head and neck to remove the painting effect. As I wanted his head and eye to stand out.

Here is the finished final image:

Let me know if you enjoyed this or if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Wade

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Poetry and the Midjourney AI

I have been testing out the Midjourney AI for a while now and have loved exploring what it can create from a simple prompt. You can see my creations and prompts on Instagram at @artbywadeai . Recently, I tried feeding the AI two of my poems and was very impressed with the results. The first poem I gave the AI was my Sunshine Reaching one. Go take a look and then check out these great images. The prompt I used for the Midjourney AI was the text of the poem with the parameters --chaos 25 --ar 3:2 appended at the end as shown below: With rays of warmth, he embraces her soul. Arms, iron strong, surround their love. Sunshine reaching, fills the room. With feathered whispers, they embrace the day. --chaos 25 --ar 3:2 Here are the first images returned. From these, I choose the second and last to render as full size images or upscale. Here are those results. After this experiment, I gave the AI my Strength poem and was very pleased with those results. Here is the full prompt for Strength:

AI Generated Art for Scavenger Hunt Words

I wasn't able to take any photographs for round 38 of the great Photography Scavenger Hunt , so I thought I'd see what Midjourney AI could create for me. Here are the nine words from the Hunt with the bonus tenth word thrown in just for fun: Monster The AI Prompt was: a pile of clothes on a chair in a dark corner that resembles a monster, shadows --ar 4:3 --chaos 25 --v 5 Vessel The AI Prompt was: vessel, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Treasure The AI Prompt was: treasure --ar 4:3 --chaos 25 --v 5.2 See The AI Prompt was: see, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Flag The AI Prompt was: flag, movie still --ar 4:5 --style raw --chaos 25 Eight The AI Prompt was: eight, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Code The AI Prompt was: code, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Aquamarine The AI Prompt was: Aquamarine, monochrome, abstract, painting --ar 5:4 --style raw --chaos 25 Skull The AI Prompt was: animal skull, movie still --ar 5:4 --style raw

Dreaming of the Weekend

I have been trying to improve my images by making them have a little bit of fantasy in them. I know we all like to escape from time to time. Here is my latest creation. Let me know what you think. Prints: https://wade-brooks.pixels.com/featured/dreaming-of-the-weekend-wade-brooks.html

Art by Wade

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