American Robin

[Joseph Przybyla]

Here's one for those of you in the higher latitudes... spring is on the way. I captured this image along a road through sod farms and cattle pastures. I wish the perch were different but with the surroundings the road is bordered by barbed wire fences.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF shot at 300mm
1/500 F/5.6 ISO 100
Post processed in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements, about 75% crop of FF

[Karl Egressy]

Nice pose and background, Joe. You might want to tone down the mid tones a little.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Nice pose and background, Joe. You might want to tone down the mid tones a little.

Hello Karl, thank you for picking up on the mid tones. I edited the image and reposted.

[Randall Farhy]

Joseph-I like the pose, however I feel the image exhibits a little too much contrast. Please see http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/118342-African-Purple-Swamphen-making-a-dash-for-cover for ideas on how to approach this situation. (yours won't require as much tweaking, but the ideas are the same)

[keith mitchell]

I like the pose and the perch is not a problem, think there may be a problem with the IQ but I can't put my finger on it, sure someone with more experience than me can help.

Keith.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hello Randall and Keith, thank you for responding and commenting.

Randall I read the thread you provided, good information from those more experienced than I. I went back to the original in Lightroom and started from scratch with the image, easier for me to do that than try to determine how to fix it.

Keith I think the IQ problem you could not put your finger on was the image was over sharpened. Sometimes when I try to tweak out too much detail I am guilty of that. It seemed obvious when comparing the new image against the old in Lightroom's compare feature.

Thanks to both of you for taking time to help me out. Here is the new image.

[Satish Ranadive]

Excellent image. Robin looks superb in re post, sharpening issue addressed well.
Very nice pose, beautiful colors and nice details.Beautiful BG. If mine,would take a silver-line of the bottom.

Regards,
Satish.

[keith mitchell]

Joseph the repost certainly as improved the image just looking at the feet you can see a huge difference,think I might just drop the contrast down a little bit to give that softer look. Just my take of course.

[Randall Farhy]

RP looks a lot better, this really is a nice image. Agree with taking a slight bit off the bottom too, just enough to take out those two holes and lessen the size of the post. Also,-as Keith notes the mids are still a bit bright-You could try making a layer in PS and setting the mode to multiply then adjust opacity to taste (I believe this is one of Artie's methods).

[Daniel Cadieux]

I really like the profile pose here, and you have a terrific background. Perch is what it is, perhaps in the future you'll get lucky and get one on a nicely weathered fence post instead. Thanks for making us northerners think of spring...it's right around the corner!

Repost is an improvement as the OP is much too contrasty. The repost still has bright midtones, especially the back of the robin...one of my favorite tools is the burn tool to darken such areas. Here I selected it, used a soft brush (0% hardness), used 10% opacity, selected midtones, and painted away on the back, wing, and rump. I also applied my "eye work" by lightening the iris using the same technique but with the dodge tool and selecting shadows instead and repeated twice.

[Joseph Przybyla]

RP looks a lot better, this really is a nice image. Agree with taking a slight bit off the bottom too, just enough to take out those two holes and lessen the size of the post. Also,-as Keith notes the mids are still a bit bright-You could try making a layer in PS and setting the mode to multiply then adjust opacity to taste (I believe this is one of Artie's methods).

Hello Randall, thanks again for taking time to view and comment. I didn't know about using an adjustment layer and the Multiply blend mode. I tried it, it works well. It is filed in my memory for this and future use.

[Joseph Przybyla]

I really like the profile pose here, and you have a terrific background. Perch is what it is, perhaps in the future you'll get lucky and get one on a nicely weathered fence post instead. Thanks for making us northerners think of spring...it's right around the corner!

Repost is an improvement as the OP is much too contrasty. The repost still has bright midtones, especially the back of the robin...one of my favorite tools is the burn tool to darken such areas. Here I selected it, used a soft brush (0% hardness), used 10% opacity, selected midtones, and painted away on the back, wing, and rump. I also applied my "eye work" by lightening the iris using the same technique but with the dodge tool and selecting shadows instead and repeated twice.

Hello Daniel, thank you for viewing, commenting and using an edit to show me what can be done. I was not familiar with the burn and dodge tools in Photoshop but I did find them and read a couple tutorials. I do most of my post processing inside Lightroom, looking at your edit and reading what you did I used the Adjustment Brush in Lightroom set to Burn trying to duplicate what you did. Here is my edit.