This guy lives in our pond, and he is absolutely huge, the part of his head sticking out of the water is just a lil smaller than a tennis ball, and his shell is a good 15 inches across, at least. I keep trying to get a good pic of him, but this is as close to the surface as he gets, and obviously the water is none too clear....any ideas on how I can Photoshop this to get more turtle and less "nuclear waste-contaminated" water?

you could add some rocks or something to sun on out a bit from the edge of the pond and maybe he'll climb up on it to take a nap. he looks like something I wouldn't want to get my fingers near ;) Maybe add a few alge eating fish to the pond too

Whoa Sweet.....that's some turtle you got there. I agree with Crystal he looks a bit dangerous. As far as photoshopping the water....I don't think there is a way to do it...you would probably need an unobstructed view of his body, and then you could clone in or add a new layer, but then what would be the point of doing that if you already had a better pic of him?

On the contrary, I definately would like to see this guy's head immersed in the water too...
...A whole bulk of monster mysteriously roaming dangerous water..!
Shoot the fella when His Majesty is completely immersed in the water..!! :))

Marvellous animals they are...

I once had encountered a Caretta caretta during a summer holiday in the Mediterranean while I was snorkelling for seashells, and tried to chase it...
...But, it was surely too fast for me to catch, and it had immediately dived deeper and deeper.
Still, the 2-3 minutes that I had spent following it was a once-in-a-life-time experience..!

Regards... :)

...you cant do much with PS. But what you can, is add contrast and play with levels. Those big fellas like to be in the sun, but in next time, try to snap a pic when he is in shadow, so water does not reflect so much. .n ps. that fella sure is dirty.

Sweet, could you get hold of an underwater camera, or maybe even one of those dispoable underwater point and shoots, and when the light is right, you could get one of him underwater, or maybe even a half submerged half above water pic! (Or does this sound silly/crazy?) Just an idea...watch your fingers! Cool Turtle! :-)>

that pond water looks like it really needs to have some pond aireating plants added around the edges and some minnows or algea eaters to help clean the water up.

Maybe a B&W can bring out the ole guy (or girl)?

This is a fun shot. Next time try a circular polarizer. It can sometimes be effective in cutting reflections....won't help with the murk tho.

The fully submerged version (with a lot of contrast adjustment and noise removal) :-) Thanks, guys, I'm gonna keep on trying, he's pretty curious (or hungry) and usually always comes around when we're down feeding the fish and geese (likes apples, not celery, and potato chips, not tortilla chips, LOL). He's very mysterious, you never see him coming (we suspect he doesn't actually swim, his shell weighs him down, he just sort of crawls along the bottom), suddenly all these lil bubbles rise to the water surface and then, voila, there he is. We call him "Rasky" cos he's rather irascible - we inadvertantly hooked his shell once while we were fishing a couple years ago and you never heard such hissing and spitting and carrying on (and never saw 3 people jump back so fast either, LOL)!

Would draining the pond and putting fresh water in be feasible? Prob'ly nice for Rascy too! (",)

That'd probably kill him with the shock Jordy!

not to mention all the fish who's probably be upset at the idea of their habitat suddenly going away.

Does not look exactly like the snapping turtles we have in Illinois/Wisconsin; they like fingers and wet poodles. Be careful in any case.

LOL! Wish we could do something about the pond water, I think there's mutant fish in there with 3 eyeballs and fins on their stomachs, the kids catch them but I can't imagine anyone actually eating them....it's owned by the county and is apparently part of the county water system (which explains why we have a water purifier :-P). There's about 8 of these big old guys (although Rasky's the biggest) along with your regular garden variety box and snappers, but I sure wouldn't use any of them for soup! :-)

lol - y'see, coming from a country less than the size of one of your states, I'm used to a garden pond being at hte bottom of someone's garden and made of moulded plastic..... Hence the draining idea, a reasonable enough practice in that situation, which equates very much to cleaning out a tropical fish tank.......catch the fish (and in this case turtle) and store them in their own water, clean out their pond and re-inroduce them about a day later when the temperature of the water has settled...... of course, in the one you've got I see that wouldn't quite work......lol (",)