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GreatBirdPics member AlwaysBirding is a wonderful Birding Buddy in Holland, Michigan. She is an excellent photographer, too (I call her “Quick Draw” because she can whip up her camera in a flash and get a shot of a bird flitting by while I’m still fumbling with my camera’s On switch).
When I first looked at the photograph she shared below my first thought was that she didn’t include all of the Horned Grebe’s feet – maybe she was too close to it.
When I read her Description I then understood. She was looking down on the bird over a blue railing. When she loaded the pic onto her camera at home she saw that the top of the blue railing was too visible/distracting. She then decided to crop off the bottom to eliminate the railing (if you look closely you can still see a hint of blue along the bottom of the frame). However she left the Aspect Ratio in place so as she cropped the bottom up, the left side came too, thereby cutting off the feet. So here’s a suggestion or two:
First Suggestion – go back into the Crop mode and unlock the Aspect Ratio then drag the left side to the left until the feet are entirely exposed. It may leave a funny height/width ratio but that would probably be less noticeable than the current crop.
Second Suggestion – re-crop the image so the bird is shown in its entirety. This will expose the feet and also the top of the blue railing. Then go to the Remove Tool in Lightroom and click on the Generative AI box. Drag the cursor over the blue rail (including the water above it and the feet) and then click the Remove button. Viola! The blue railing will be gone and any area of the feet that the blue railing obscured will be AI magically restored. C’mon AlwaysBirding – give it a try! If you do send us an updated version. Good luck!
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