African bird

[Kevin Leclaire]

We chased this strikingly colorful bird in our Land Rover while on safari in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania last year (March) until it obliged by alighting on a branch in the late afternoon sun. Our guide indicated it was a rare sighting but one that is much sought after. That being said, I cannot recall the name of the bird whatsoever. If anyone can help I would be much obliged.

D70S, 300mm, 1/400, f5.6, ISO200

Feedback welcome--this is a modest crop of the original, couldn't figure out how to best (or if I should) downplay the branches in the upper right.

[Geurt Bloem]

Kevin, this is a lilac breasted roller and fairly common in the southern African areas. Nice image but the background a tad busy for me here.

[Dan Brown]

Hi Kevin. This is a type of Roller. I am not sure but I think it is a Lilac-breasted Roller. As for the branches, they are pretty close to your bird but you could Quick Mask them and blur/darken them. A tighter crop, taking some of the space from the top and producing a bigger bird would look better to me. I would like to see more brightness on the birds back. You should be able to brighten the back using Shadow/Highlights.

Dan Brown,
Sacramento

[Kevin Leclaire]

Thanks for the help on identification and suggestions.

In this retouch, I attempted to lighten the shadows to brighten this Roller's back, while maintaining some of the striking contrast that I liked in the original, but started to run into noise issues. Recrop per suggestions and I used some color control points in Capture NX on the branches on the upper right to darken some of the brightest spots.

[Juan Aragonés]

Hi Kevin this is a nice and colourful species but the BG doesn´t made justice to the bird. It is very distracting and the branch at the right is very close to the bill. The eyeshine is nice and I like the fact that the bird seems to be watching the sun :)
Welcome on board I am sure that you will find a lot of interesting resources here ;)

[Dan Brown]

Hi Kevin. I like the repost better than the original. The crop may be a little too tight, the tail is very close to the edge. I sharpened and reduced noise with Noise Ninja and then cloned out the dark area behind the birds bill. Unfortunatelly, the branch near the tip of the bill is not good. But, it is what it is. Dan

[Kevin Leclaire]

Dan,
Thanks. I wish I knew then what I've learned since, especially attention to background.

-Kevin

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice find and light. The closer crop works better but I agree regarding the BG and would sharpen the bird a tad more.