Snowy Egret + Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted April 7, 2012244 views10 comments

Canon EOS 7D
EF-S55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS @235mm
4/5/2012 – 6:35:00 PM
1/400 sec
f/5.6
Manual
ISO 400
Handheld
Rookery at St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Raw, LR3, CS5, had to do CW rotation and crop and clone ULH and LRH corners, 90-something percent of full frame

Not displaying, not fighting, but a good look at the breeding colors, I think.

I have brightened this more than I would have before I started working on brightening. I used curves for brightening the shadows and the midtones. I'm including the original below for comparison. The exposure in the original was the right amount of exposure for the whites with no "blinkies." The histogram is still toward the darker end, but not as much as with the original image. Your opinions on whether this is the right amount of brightening or too much would be greatly appreciated.

The other thing about this shot is that I was able to select the background, and I selected this background because it was the most uniform type of vegetation.

Comments, opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Comments

10 comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on April 7, 2012 at 10:27 AM

Here is the image before any brightening adjustments.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on April 7, 2012 at 11:30 AM

The as-posted version looks good to my eye, Barbara. The original was definitely too dark. Great pose and bg.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Bill Leggett on April 7, 2012 at 11:52 AM

Very nice breeding colors. Your postprocessing looks great.

Registered on July 21, 2004, 706 Posts, 3233 Comments

Comment posted by Walt Sterneman on April 7, 2012 at 12:24 PM

On my monitor there is a blown out little section on the top of the head and very close to blown out just under the chin. If you did the curves work on a separate layer you can put a filter mask on it and eliminate the adjustment on those areas by painting the mask with a fuzzy brush. Then this very nice picture would be perfect!

Registered on March 24, 2010, 73 Posts, 1268 Comments

Comment posted by Brian Gatlin on April 7, 2012 at 12:24 PM

good job on a difficult exposure--you've lost a bit of the whites on the forehead, but excellent detail everywhere else. I think your processing looks good.

Registered on March 21, 2009, 202 Posts, 4187 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on April 7, 2012 at 3:44 PM

A handsome breeding Snowy, Barbara. I agree with Walt and the others that there are a couple of post-processing generated hot spots, but those are easily fixed. Really good post-processing work.

If it were mine, I'd be tempted to do the brightening only on the bird, and not the background, to try and preserve some of the mood in your original shot. You can use the Magic Wand to select the bird, the Refine Edge command to create a bit of a buffer and then perform the manipulations on the bird alone.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on April 7, 2012 at 4:22 PM

I'll echo Jim's comments.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Barbara Graham on April 7, 2012 at 7:45 PM

Thank you very much for the feedback. Here's a repost with the background brightened just a little. I got the top of the head a tiny bit better, but it's still not great.

Registered on July 27, 2010, 1310 Posts, 5035 Comments

Comment posted by Fabio Giarrizzo on April 8, 2012 at 7:18 AM

Like very much this portrait- Nice pose, excellent exposure on whites and a smart processing job- Former version is surely the best one- Very well done, Fabio

Registered on December 3, 2010, 90 Posts, 1614 Comments

Comment posted by Charles Gangas on April 8, 2012 at 9:12 AM

I think the salient critiques concerning post-processing have all been mentioned Barbara. I love the pose and the great look at the breeding colors of this bird, and I see your efforts reworking the image render a very fine result. Nice work.

Registered on August 12, 2009, 544 Posts, 2414 Comments