09 Dec 13. We take a break from the Colorado Plateau and return to Fisherman's Terminal in Ballard and a goose whom you've seen prior. I thought I'd try something a bit different for today and reverse a process (contrast manipulation) that I've used in the past to separate a subject from its background and give it some 3-D qualities. As you all know, light precedes and dark recedes, sharp precedes and soft recedes, as well as other combination pairs, but since in this image my subject and background shared similar attributes, intentionally chosen for this example, these normal techniques were not going to work. So to get around this problem, my approach was to give everything, excluding the subject, the goose, great detail. Now I'm rather certain you are thinking this seems counter intuitive, because now the greatest detail is not with the subject, and it should become of lesser importance. But it sets up an immediate contrast between the two, sufficiently so, that the goose literally pops out from the background. Now to really see this work, you should zoom out to at least 50%, more being even better, but the 50% will get you there. When you do you will be immediately aware that the goose seems to be forward of the water, the very effect I wanted. I wasn't sure if this could be done, but it appears to work effectively. To do this was very simple as it turned out, although I had to try a few different things to get the simple answer. It was done by taking the initial background layer, duping it and applying a strong detail enhancement and then masking it off (protecting) the goose. I then added a dodge and burn layer to brighten the eye of the goose just a tiny bit, but enough to really make the eye stand out. Then I ran a noise reduction filter on the image but kept it from touching the goose, again, employing the same mask as before. The result is what you are seeing. Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority;ISO 200; 1/400 sec @ f / 8.