Yellow-throated Vireo

Hi Dennis
The back=ground doesn't help any, but your Vireo looks nice.
Peter

The large image certainly looks better.  Good color and detail.

I like this even with the white sky - I never managed a shot of one of these local breeders in my NJ film days and would be happy to have taken this.

But with a little time in photoshop you can add some graduated color to replace the blank sky as I have done here with your permission.

My steps, starting from your jpeg:

1. duplicate the background layer so you have two.

2. Select the vireo and the branch in the upper layer and with it active click on the mask icon to turn the selection into a mask.

3. Pick a shade of blue that suits your concept of natural (I just picked a light blue swatch for this example).

4. Select the bottom layer.

5. Add a new blank layer that sits between the background and the copy with mask.

6. Use the gradient tool on the blank layer, using the selected blue at one end and a lighter blue on the other. This adds the color to the sky.

7. Use the opacity slider on the middle color layer to bring it down to a natural appearance based on your experience nad judgement.

8. Finally, if the result looks darker without the white sky you may want to lighten it overall with a curves layer pulled up in the middle.

I didn't spend much time on this example, so you can make it look better with a more careful selection and fine tuning the shades of blue used for the gradient.

Classic BOAS comp, with a well resolved subject and a good head turn. I think I would make the thin stringy blue stems up and down the branch go away.

Thanks for posting the process for creating a pleasant blue sky, Rich.  When I get home in a couple of days, I'll try to work this magic on ghe original and post it again.  I really appreciate you sending me this.

 

Dennis and Rich thank you for both, the nice image of the Yellow-throated Vireo, and the instructions for the background color change. 

I agree with Rich and Phil about those minor changes.  Would like to see how both look. Very nice capture of the bird. I do think the slight tint in the back ground helps to separate the bird in a more natural view. 

I downloaded Nik Google (it is free) and in the Color Efex 4 I was able to change to sky (not sure I picked the most natural blue), but just wanted to see how it would work for my own info.  Anyway, I tried it on your beautiful image of the Vireo.  See what you think.  I used Colorize and selected the sky.  I selected the bird and branch to not be cororized. 

Hi Shirley.  The NIK colorize function looks like it would work pretty well with a little tweaking.  I do notice that it turned the white parts, like the wing bars, of the bird blue, but by applying it to a separate layer that would be easy to avoid.  Another neat trick.