Dark eyed Junco

[Jim Thomas]

Not much to work with right now, but Juncos are everywhere. This was sort of a setup, but the actual stage is a branch coming off of this stump, but as usual, the birds have their own ideas. He's watching a scary squirrel. i'm trying to come up with some sort of workflow so if you see anything off with pp please speak up.

Jim

Nikon D5000, 150-500 os, 1/250, f 8, 500mm, iso 500

PP; opened raw file, adj. brightness too keep white detail, open in editor, crop for comp., convert to 8 bit rgb, levels, usm at 3. and again at 1.5. BG NR and touchups on mask layer, flatten, selective levels adj. on beak, resize and usm at .5 for web.

127917

[PhilCook]

This is overall quite nice Jim, I like it's stance and the very nice mottled backdrop, liking a lot as well the gnarly stump he/she is sitting on, at least i like the darker section with the lichen, but I find the lighter section a bit bright, suggest to crop to just below the small upright bit on the lighter part of the stump and clone out any remaining. The main probolem I see with this one is it looks somewhat grainy, maybe over sharpened or/and ISO noise. I find ISO noise is significantly reduced by using manual exposure program.

My crop idea.........

[Karl Egressy]

Nice perch, interesting and nice pose, excellent composition, Jim. I would tone down the left part of the perch, which is not covered with moss.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Jim, good DOF on the Junco, with an interesting pose. Cool colours in the BG, and agree your OP needs a touch of NR on the BG.

Here is my version moving the junco a little more to the right, and NR to the BG.

[vishaljadhav]

Nice image , sharp and fantastic in terms of details
the perch is nicely colored too
I like the OP however the one by Stuart is a nice improvement

[Jim Thomas]

ooooh, smooth! What's OP though?

Jim

[Jim Thomas]

oh, I get it, original post!
ooooh, smooth! What's OP though?

Jim

[Jim Thomas]

Everyone seems to do some kind of background noise reduction and i'd like to know what their process is. i had done NR on BG, but I should have upped the settings I guess. I've been creating a new layer with the image, run the NR, then use eraser tool to create mask over subject. Is that typically how it's done?

Jim

[PhilCook]

Everyone seems to do some kind of background noise reduction and i'd like to know what their process is. i had done NR on BG, but I should have upped the settings I guess. I've been creating a new layer with the image, run the NR, then use eraser tool to create mask over subject. Is that typically how it's done?

Jim

That's how I do it

[Daniel Cadieux]

I would love the OP the best if it was not for the bright part of the perch that has been hidden in the reposts. I'm liking the first repost's comp with the last one's NR to the background (which is a very nice one BTW!!). In the context of the subject looking at a squirrel below the head angle works, but as a standalone image I'd have preferred it turned away a couple of degrees less. Good stuff though!

As for NR, you'll get many different ways of doing it. I typically save a version that has everything done except NR and sharpening done. I open up that file and apply NR to the whole image then use the "History" brush at 100% and brush away the NR on the subject and perch.