Bartailed Godwit

[William Dickson]

Canon 7D
Canon F/2.8 with 1x4 TC
F/5
1/1600
ISO 800

processed in CS6

Captured on the beach in Kirkcaldy, Fife,Bonnie Scotland, I really liked the background in this image of the wave breaking behind the bird

Your thoughts are appreciated

[Frank Schauf]

Beautiful portrait, great details and sharpness.

[Arthur Morris]

Howdy, Do you prefer William or Bill? Great bird. Sharp with a good EXP and I like the placement of the bird in the frame. The bird's head is angled ever-so-slightly away from us--angled 1 or 2 degrees towards us would have been better. While I like the breaking wave its position in the frame is less than ideal as it falls behind the bird's head and is thus a bit distracting. A frame or two later would likely have been better. If it would have been possible to get lower that would have been the way to go.

[William Dickson]

Hi Arthur,

I really appreciate your comments, and found them to be most helpful. I am known as William.

Here is another image with no breaking wave in the background, your advice on this image would be very much appreciated

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[Daniel Cadieux]

Ditto Artie's critique. The head angle on the second image is actually turned away even more than the first. The amount of degrees it is turned away would be perfect towards us instead. Is this a common bird in Scotland?

[William Dickson]

Theres a few of them about Daniel, but, I wouldn't say that it is common

As far as the postion of the head, would this image be the better?

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[Arthur Morris]

Hi Arthur,

I really appreciate your comments, and found them to be most helpful. I am known as William.

Here is another image with no breaking wave in the background, your advice on this image would be very much appreciated



Thanks for having an open mind here Willaim :) The Image Quality in the first repost is far poorer than the IQ in the original post and Dan hit the nail on the head as far as head angle. Best is to go to the ER (Educational Resources) Forum and study the very long thread on Head Angles....

[Arthur Morris]

Theres a few of them about Daniel, but, I wouldn't say that it is common

As far as the postion of the head, would this image be the better?



For a portrait of a single bird angled towards us the head angle here is great. There are lots of new problems with this image however. I will be back in 5 minutes of less.

[Arthur Morris]

I love the image design of the last photo. For whatever reasons, there is a ton of noise on the rear bird. The image has a large blue/magenta cast. And the image overall is way too dark as presented.

For the repost I lightened the image, balanced the color using the Average Blur Color Balance technique, ran Filter/Blur Surface Blue on the whole image, and sharpened the head and chest of of the front bird. You can learn to do all of that in my Digital Basics File here; the best $25 you could ever spend on improving your Photoshop skills.... Digital Basics (https://store.birdsasart.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=252) is an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. It includes my complete digital workflow, dozens of great Photoshop tips, the use of Contrast Masks, several different ways of expanding canvas, all of my time-saving Keyboard Shortcuts, Quick Masking, Layer Masking, and NIK Color Efex Pro basics, my killer image clean-up techniques, Digital Eye Doctor, and lots more.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I may have lightened the image a bit too much :).

[William Dickson]

Thanks for that, Arthur, I will purchase the above mentioned item, and, hopefully, it will help me in processing my images

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

I like the original photo but agree with Arthur regarding the HA. Now, the second image is better in my opinion and the third one is also a good one but there is too much noise due to the NR pass. I believe a darker version of the third image could make for an interesting one.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for that, Arthur, I will purchase the above mentioned item, and, hopefully, it will help me in processing my images

You are welcome William. It takes some practice but learning post processing is not a difficult task. Best of luck and thanks, and thanks for being open.