Least Tern

[Michael Libbe]

Taken in June near Ft. Matanzas, Florida. Canon 50D, Canon 500mm f4L + 1.4 TC, f11, 1/1000, ISO 400.

[Karl Egressy]

The picture is very small. You should check the size and re=post it if you can.

[Gary Esman]

From what I see it is a nice shot. Would love to see it 1024 pixels wide/

Gary.

[Michael Libbe]

I haven't been able to figure out how to edit/delete this post, so I'll post it again with a resized image.

[Marina Scarr]

Welcome to BPN, Mike. It's nice to see you posting here. The best way to repost this in a larger size is to hit "go advanced". This will allow you to include another attachment. Let me know if you have a problem. It looks like a nice image and we're all looking forward to seeing it in a larger format.

[Michael Libbe]

Thanks, Marina! Let's see if I've got this figured out now. It looks better in the Preview Post, so maybe I'm getting the hang of this! :S3:

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Thanks for reposting Michael! Looks like your first post, so welcome to BPN!

For this image, I would consider adding a bit of room to the left and cropping a bit to the bottom, top, and right. Not much, just a bit. The whites on the birds look a bit blown out. If you can, try to see if you can recover them a bit. Otherwise, it's a great capture!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Welcome to BPN Michael...and I am glad you've seemed to figure out how to post your image at a bigger size! What a wonderful tender moment you got here. I love the two great head angles with opposing bill directions. Good low angle, nice clean beach, sharp details as posted. A bit tight at left fro the tail, and I'd trim a wee bit off the bottom. Overall quite beautiful...looking forward to more from you!!

[Randy Stout]

Michael:

A big welcome to BPN.

A very tender moment here, lovely interaction. Good advice from the folks above. I agree, more room on the left, I would crop up about 30% of the free space from below, and then adjust the other two sides to balance things.

Looking forward to more posts.

Cheers

Randy

[denise ippolito]

Michael, Lovely shot! Welcome to BPN. I like the tender moment you captured. I love Least Terns and didn't get a chance with them this year so thank you for sharing. I might tone down the whites as noted by Miguel. I agree w/ the suggestions regarding more room on the left. The raised feathers make this special.

[Marina Scarr]

Nice to see the larger image, Mike. Looks like your exposure is spot on and you have nice details in your feathers. I agree on adding more space on the left if you have it and readjusting your crop a bit. Could you share whether you've done any beach clean up here? The beach looks so pristine.

Looking forward to seeing more of your images.

[Michael Libbe]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome to BPN. Thanks also for the comments regarding this image. Looks like I need to rethink the way I crop my images. To answer Marina's question, the beach required hardly any cleanup. In looking at the original, it looks like I removed 4 or 5 very small (really small) dark spots on the beach. Otherwise, this is how the beach looked that morning. I was lucky to get this nest in a clean area as other areas of the same beach are littered with grass and trash. Some of the terns nested right behind some of the washed up sea grass, so it was difficult to get it cleaned up.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice to see the larger image, Mike. Looks like your exposure is spot on and you have nice details in your feathers. I agree on adding more space on the left if you have it and readjusting your crop a bit. Could you share whether you've done any beach clean up here? The beach looks so pristine. Looking forward to seeing more of your images.

Hi Marina, I gotta disagree on the details in the white. While there are always going to be small differences in monitors, the WHITEs here on the neck and elsewhere are detail-less and the same goes for the bill. There are lots of RGB readings higher than 250 and right at 255 on the bill. My very great preference for WHITEs with detail is to have the image come into PS after conversion with no RGB values above 230 a)fter Recovery if needed). But at times I will slide by with some readings in the 230s....

Yes to sharp with a tender moment captured and a nice low perspective. And a perfect head angle. A bit more room behind the bird would improve it.

Lastly, welcome to BPN and thanks a stack for your membership support.

ps: I would start from scratch here by re-converting, watching the RGB values as noted above, and using the Recovery Slider. Even with WHITEs below 230 I often need to run a 15-20% Linear Burn and/or some NIK Color Efex Detail Extractor and for problem children, even both.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellent interaction and pose in sweet light, the whites do look a bit hot and more room on the right will improve this great shot.

[Michael Libbe]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I reworked the image taking the advice offered. I can't crop more of the bottom without further boxing in the subject, but other than that, I applied your suggestions. Let me know what you think.

[Marina Scarr]

Hi Marina, I gotta disagree on the details in the white.

Thanks for picking up on that Artie. Every once in a while I post a critique from my work monitor forgetting that it's uncalibrated. :(

The whites look a lot better in your repost, Mike. Not sure about the crop. I brought it into PS and too some off of the left and bottom and like it a bit better. It's all about experimenting but I feel as presented, it's a tad too centered.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. Good suggestion on the crop. For the repost I cropped as you suggested but added some canvas front and stretched a Quick Mask to fill it in. Much better on the WHITEs, in fact, it might be just a bit overdone not in the brightest WHITEs but in the tones just below those.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: re-saving the JPEG has caused some loss of image quality but shows the intended crop.

[Michael Libbe]

Thank you Marina and Artie. I didn't consider adding canvas to improve the crop, but I can see how that has helped. I thought I might have overdone the whites, so I need to fine-tune my technique there. Thanks for the helpful advice and reposts.

[Arthur Morris]

You are most welcome.