Bufflehead

[Terry Johnson]

137745

Hello, this image was taken a couple of weeks ago. Took awhile to get back to processing.

Nikon D800
Nikon 70-200mm with 2.0X teleconverter
F5.6
1/500
ISO-250
A-priority
HH

Difficult to pull the shadows out of the head and back areas...

Comments welcome...Terry Johnson:S3:

[Daniel Cadieux]

An unusual perspective on this species. Nice colours on the head and face. Good composition too. You did well on the blacks but I think there is more detail to be pulled out in the whites. Do you photograph in raw? If so there are a couple of sliders you can try such as the highlights one. Another thing I'd suggest is to boost your ISO for moving subjects...better chance at consistently freezing the action with the resulting higher shutter speed.

[Terry Johnson]

137757

Daniel, here is a revised version with the highlights reduced. A good suggestion...Terry Johnson

[Diane Miller]

Both the Highlights and Shadows sliders are usually the first ones I reach for, and they usually work wonders. Some Exposure tweaking is often in order, too, to bring out the best detail in one or the other. This looks like a good job to me.

I'd bring it into PS and add canvas on the bottom and left and see if content-aware fill could work its usual miracle, then straighten the "horizon" (level the wake). You'll have a very nice image then!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good job on the repost's whites Terry!