Harrier hunting at dusk

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon 500/4 + 1.4X
1/1250sec f/7.1 ISO 500

CS6 Noiseware Pro

136090

Bosque del Apache NWR

[John Chardine]

Hi Ian- Image portrays what the harriers do nicely. The basics are there but I think we need to figure out way so boosting the appeal of the image. As presented, the subject is small and quite dark and there's not a lot going on in the FG or BG. I see some nice colours in the sky which you could use to your advantage by increasing Vibrance. Perhaps a slightly different crop would work better- e.g., taking some off the right and putting the subject closer to the edge of the frame. Anyway, it's an interesting exercise to see what you can do.

[Diane Miller]

What was your processing? -- from the RAW file especially. Could you lighten the bird and darken the sky a little more? Noise can be a problem in lightening the darker tones, so maybe that's not a good option.

[Ian Cassell]

136143

I brightened the bird a bit with Nik Viveza. Then masked him and worked on the background with levels. Added a bit of NR on the BG with Noiseware Pro and tightened the crop in CS6.

[Diane Miller]

The BG is nice but this is pushing IQ on the bird. And with this size of subject it would be very difficult to get clean masking, too.

For me, the tighter crop just emphasizes the large space between the bird and the OOF bush/tree, which I think does contribute to the image. If anything, I would move the bird down quite a bit, then crop some off the top. Content-aware move might do it. But for some uses of course you wouldn't alter an image like that.

I also see the second image is in AdobeRGB. Even though you've embedded the profile, it's safest to convert to sRGB so the widest audience, with a range of browsers, will see it as accurately as possible.

[John Chardine]

I like the colours Ian!