Ducks (Digitally Edited and Posterized)

Ducks (Digitally Edited and Posterized), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

This image started with a photo that I took last Monday at the Cummings Center Pond. We had stopped there to walk the dog late in the afternoon. I was surprised to see these ducks right at the edge of the pond, so I got out my camera. I had to photograph them through the grass. There was a lot of grass, more than you see here! For the past few days, I have been working on this image in Painter, carefully obscuring some of the blades of grass with digital pastel, so that more can be seen of the ducks. In some cases, I could only remove a little bit of grass, because without having to start inventing visual information. (I did color matching with the closest color.) I did this little by little, and it seem to work. Then I used Painter to posterize the image, and then cropped it to get this composition. I am happier with the image, and although this little project was time-consuming, it was good practice.