Common Yellowthroat RP2

Nice one David, love the pure background, really helps separate the subject. Would prefer the head to be a bit more to camera rather than away, but the open beak adds. Would drop the exposure on the 'perch'  to add more 'tone/depth' and it would also soften too in terms of being a bit bright. It's not the ideal tool, but a simple, yet quick fix. I would go with another route and change the blending mode, but that's couple with a Curves/Channels adjustment, rather than the basic levels & gamma.

TFS
Steve

Here is a repost with some adjustment to the perch and BG highlights and saturation. Basically a brights 1 luminosity mask applied to the perch and BG.

Good capture and very nice techs. Fine work getting the near-uniform background. I prefer the first post; the re-post light looks a little too manipulated to me, but then I wasn't there...

Nice one, David.  I like the full-throated singing pose. and it doesn't look oversharpened to me.  Just noticed the repost.  I'm with Jim on this one.  The repost looks a bit overprocessed with the perch looking rather too gray for reality.

The adjustment was to the 'perch' only David, I think you have added a 'Global TK adjustment which has darkened the whole image, if that is what you did. A Lights 1 with a Curves would have been better and no real colour shift too.

Basically, a nice singing pose, perch, and background.  It's nice to get them in the open like this.  My initial thought was to slightly decrease the brightness on the perch, but I prefer the original background.

Just a slightly less bright perch and I'd be happy as a hound on a fresh trail.

Nice open beak and clean image David. I also wish you had a touch more head turn, but this still works. I definitely prefer the original post for the same reasons Dennis pints out. But like Steve said, the darkening should have been selectively on the perch. If you are not comfortable with using PS for the adjustment, it is much faster to do it in LR anyway. Just use the selection tool and highlight the perch, choose Burn and move the slider to the left until it looks acceptable to your eye. Real simple and real fast.

Looked at this one several times and I still prefer the  original post- especially the background. Cracking looking bird too
JohnR

What a beautiful bird, David.  You really captured him in the middle of his song it looks like.  Love the perch he is on, with the beautiful background. 

Thanks everybody for their comments on this.  I thought the perch on the original post was a little bright and I had intended to adjust it however it began to look rather muddy when I did.  So I reprocess the entire image from scratch and here's the result.  It is not quite as bright as the original posting but I think the perch looks better and I think the overall image is a little more balanced with respect to the background, the perch in the bird itself.

I like the second repost, David.  A good compromise in the processing. 

Love the original shot the best of the three. I love the bird pose and the perch as well. The only small detail is that the bird's head is turned a bit away from the camera, but we get what we can get. Great capture and thanks for sharing. 

The second repost looks great.  Nice combination of pose, perch and background here.

Max