Grackle in Parking Lot

Welcome to NPN, Robert! Just an excellent first offering. Black on black is more difficult than white on white, but you have created a well detailed portrait. I don't know how well this will print, but it certainly shows well digitally. My guess is that you would have to add brightness to the background selectively to pull the subject out. Someone here probably knows a good bit more than I do about printing, who will give you better instructions than I can.

For some reason, your large image is the same size as your post size, but the bird has a definite blue iridescence. I believe this is a Common Grackle. This could well be how you want the print to look. I will point out that the larger image can have a maximum size of 1600 pixels x n and 1000KB. This size allows the critiquer to do a better job of critiquing.

I'm glad top see you started off with a critique. That, IMO, is the best way to learn and improve your skill. So, a good start! I look forward to seeing more of your work.

 

Wecome to NPN and the Avian Forum.

I like this very much - I'm a big fan of monochromatic color images. The darkness and tghew composition add a sense of mystery to the image.

As Phil says this looks fine on the monitor. I don't know if there's enough separation between the breast and the background for it to show well in a print, and that's likely a function of the type of paper you use.

You don't say if you shot this as a raw NEF file or a jpeg. If it is a raw file you have a greater ability to bring up the exposure a bit to reveal more detail in the darkest areas and that may help with printing.

I'd brighten the bird just a little.   Neat idea.

Hi Robert and welcome to NPN! This is a fantastic image and quite the way to announce your arrival! 

You've already received some excellent feedback from Phil and Richard. I'll just add that a very light touch of dodging on the blackest part of the grackle's cheek and in front of its eye might bring this up another level if it brought out some feather detail while not "greying" the black too much. There's several ways you could do this, and I'm sure you already have a technique that works for you...I'll just suggest a duplicate layer which you can then mask your dodging and adjust the opacity (and possibly even blending mode) might do the trick. 

This is a seriously cool image with great feel and graphic power so please accept the above as just a thought that might be worth taking a few minutes to explore. 

Quite the fortuitous circumstances, too! Awesome job seeing and realizing the potential here. 

Hello, Robert ! Welcome ! Nice shot, like the composition and the eye standing out clearly from the rest. The white bar on the background ideally would have had a little less boundary (don't know if that's a correct translation for what I want to express) but other than that a fine image ! Cheers, Hans

Welcome to NPN Robert. Very cool first post and you have gotten some great feedback already. I love the mood this image presents and that eye pops right out at the viewer. Well done! 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I've played with dodging the dark areas per John's suggestion and hopefully I'm following correct procedure for adding the new photo.  I brightened up the bird a bit using a brightness adjustment layer, then added another layer with the soft light blend mode then brushed on pure white to the darker areas. I think if I brighten any more the photo will get grainy. I think these changes look better. Let me know what you think about the improvements. Again, a million thanks.

Hi Robert! I THINK I prefer the highlit section of the bird (the back of head and neck) as well as the beak in the original, and the reworked cheek in the repost. Your repost is very good, so I'm just thinking out loud here. I don't know this species very well, but to me the bluish cast of the repost looks at the very least less dramatic than the original darker, and less blue original, however, you were able to bring some detail out on the cheek and that totally makes this an improvement IMO. For me, the original with that hint of feather detail in the cheek of the repost would be the winner (or a partial blend of the reworked cheek into the original just to bring that detail in). I must confess I'm struggling at communicating what I'm seeing and thinking a bit ...fighting with a bad gall bladder for the past month and it's catching up with me. 

Both the original and repost are very, very nice images with great impact. If this was shot on RAW I think you should have good information for a conversion that you can coax that detail out of while retaining nice deep blacks. As I mentioned in my original post, there are so many approaches that can accomplish this. If you happen to have Nik (Google) Color Efex 4 plugin, you could use a very light selectively-applied round of detail extractor. If you aren't familiar with that plugin, it can take a bit of getting used to to get things to have a subtle, natural look as the defaults are INSANE in my opinion. Honestly you seem to have accomplished what needed to be done with your approach, but for me the darkness of the rest of the bird is more dramatic in the original. We're splitting hairs between great versions here, Robert, so take this all with a grain of salt as they say. 

Hi John,
I appreciate the followup immensely. I think you're right about the repost. The bird does have a bluish tint to it in reality but I don't really want that in this photo. I want to keep the darker cast with the touch up to the cheek. I will go back to the original, leave out the overall brightening and paint the detail into the cheek area. Then if I can only get it to print out as nice as it looks on the monitor I will be a happy boy.
Thanks again and I hope you feel better soon.