Turtle Soup

Here's one last shot from our trip to Armand Bayou Nature Center the weekend before last. There are a couple of small ponds near the end of the Discovery Trail that are home to many turtles. This green algae covered pond was so thick with turtles it made it easy for me to come up with the title for this photo: Turtle Soup.

Title: "Turtle Soup"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / Canon 100-400mm L zoom
Post-processing: Photoshop CS3 > Duplicate Background Layer > Topaz Adjust plugin "Mid-Color Pop" preset to increase saturation > Curves Adjustment Layer to improve overall contrast > Merge Visible to New Layer > Topaz Adjust plugin "Clarity" preset to sharpen details > Merge Visible to New Layer to do some cloning work on the water surface between the turtle and the leaf (there was a hole in the algae between them that was distracting) > Selective Color Adjustment Layer to increase saturation on the red leaf and orange markings on the turtle > Merge Visible to New Layer > Distort Lens Correction Vignette > Brightness / Contrast Adjustment Layer to increase overall brightness of the image