Theme: Trumpeter Swan with some good yellows

[Jack Breakfast]

Please do accept this picture, it being another look at a fine local Trumpeter Swan with yellow in the lores. This picture was taken with the Canon 7D and the 100-400 at 400mm. iso640, 1/800, f8.
If you were me, would you eliminate the white horizontal line at swan's neck? Good greetings to one and all!

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[Karl Egressy]

This image is great, Jack. I like this one much better than the previous one.

[Daniel Cadieux]

He/she is a beauty Jack! I love the whites, and the details you got in them. The composition looks balanced, although I could see a version with a tad more room in front. You read my mind about the streak behind the neck! The colours in the BG look very nice, well done!

[Jack Breakfast]

Thank you Karl and thank you Daniel. Here is a question for anyone who's interested:
Normally I don't remove things from my pictures (not because I have an ethical problem with such, but because my item-removal skills are somewhat limited) but in this case I do think the picture could be improved by removing the one greyish-white bar against our fellow's neck. My typical strategy would be to make a quick mask and get to work, but I'm a little unclear on how to avoid messing up the swan's feathers. I don't mean to be a terrible nuisance here, but I'd appreciate a quick strategy. I'd appreciate the help so much that I'd probably go bonkers!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Jack, yes, using a quick mask to cover parts of the neck close to that area is likely the best solution. Work in tight to get the feather details covered, then you can use the clone stamp to remove that spot. You can use some of the BG from in front of the head (URC), and with the clone stamp of 60-70% and a brush about twice the thickness of that area to be removed make 2-3 passes to cover it. P.S. I like a "hardness" of 30% on my cloning brush).

[Diane Miller]

Another beauty!

What Daniel said... But I tried the Quick Selection tool to see if it would isolate the detail on the edge of the neck, and it did so very well. Zoom way in and change its brush size as needed and brush over the neck adjacent to that area. It will continue adding to the selection with subsequent strokes. To undo an area hold the Alt key. Then inverse the selection (Select > Inverse) and your selected area of the neck will be the protected area.

Before cloning I'd duplicate the BG to have an out.

I almost always keep the Hardness of the cloning brush at 0 and let the size determine the feathering. Good idea to make several passes at lower opacity to build up the effect. Maybe change the sample point or not, as needed. (Set the hardness and opacity in the top Options bar when the Clone Stamp is selected.)

[Jack Breakfast]

Daniel: thank you! Diane: thank you! Ah, the quick selection tool, I'll certainly try that. Actually I'll try both of your methods. I will learn things! Much appreciated...