American Bittern Peek-a-boo

[Dan Busby]

Just joining in on the recent head-shot parade. Photographed from canoe, this bird was relatively cooperative for an AMBI. Approached from the water it seemed to be more accepting of me, although extreme stealth was required as I was not camouflaged. Disclosure: one fairly bright oof water plant obscured part of the birds body. I did my best with cloning and opacity to reduce the distraction. Otherwise, just about 25% crop, curves, vibrance and sharpening on bird only. All C&C welcome and appreciated.
Canon Mark IV, 500 f/4L IS II, ISO:800, f/ 4@1/500, Manual, AI Servo AF, multi-segment, HH.

[Lyle Gruby]

What a great encounter! I have only seen them flying off. Great IQ. The image appears a bit bright to me overall, although your highlights all look great so maybe it's just me. I'd burn down the OOF highlights. I love the varied BG.

[Richard Flack]

Fantastic shot. And a difficult bird to photograph. Really like this Dan. Thanks for sharing

[Marina Scarr]

I am really enjoying these images of hidden birds in environment. Your comp and pose are just right. This bird is looking quite bright to my eyes. I pulled it into PS and did a luminosity mask at 30% and feel it looks quite a bit better. Some of the feathers around the neck could be looking a little crunchy to me. All in all, a very pleasing image,Dan.

[Jonathan Ashton]

A super shot I love the natural feel to the image, I would definitely lower the brightness - (I tried curves - Darker)

[Diane Miller]

Very nice. I'm also enjoying the "bird in the bush" images In this one I agree the exposure or brightness could be brought down.

I don't want to get off-topic here so I'm going to start a thread in Eager to Learn about what is meant by "luminosity mask at 30%" because it could mean a range of things that the term doesn't go far enough to explain, but it seems to be a standard shorthand here for something.

[Dan Busby]

Not sure why but I seem to be in a very bright phase of processing and I don't notice it until it's converted and uploaded. But I agree that my OP was bright and a bit crunchy. My monitor is calibrated but I think I should do a re-cal. Anyway, I applied an opacity layer mask and re-sharpened. Thanks for all the great comments. I hope this looks a bit better.

[Marina Scarr]

This version looks better for sure, Dan. I do think that I would give it a slight contrast boost. I just did a linear curve layer and it looks even better.

[Daniel Cadieux]

First "These Eyes"...now is this one "American Woman"?:t3 The vegetation looks great, super nice comp.

[Diane Miller]

Here's what looks right on my monitor -- a simple Curves pulled down in the middle, and the Blue channel pulled up in the middle just slightly to remove some of the yellow cast.

It didn't have a profile embedded -- it's now tagged sRGB.

[Marina Scarr]

I am really liking what you did here, Diane. It's now how I pictured it in my head.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Dan, I sense there is something not quite right with the processing. I think you have a great image but I don't get the impression it has translated correctly, I don't know how to explain but I get the impression there is insufficient resolution.