female cardinal

[Stuart Edwards]

im trying real hard to figure out photoshop and camera raw . i am figuring a few things out but its a pretty slow learning curve so far.
this is a shot of a cardinal from last summer that was over exposed quite a bit.
canon 70d 100-400 @400mm f9 1/200 and iso 400
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8622/16238430343_6543f67871_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/qJWcAX)IMG_2086 (https://flic.kr/p/qJWcAX) by sedwards679 (https://www.flickr.com/people/94381946@N07/), on Flickr

[Diane Miller]

You've got a good start here, with contrast and highlights and shadows well managed for what looks like shot in full sun. Overexposures, if not gone too far, do allow shadow details to be brought out. Sometimes there is time to bracket exposures when we shoot, and after a while you'll gain the confidence to get the best one.

Before doing anything in PS, you should do what you can with the Shadows and Highlights sliders in ACR, balanced with Exposure. The shadows might come up a little further here, but it's a delicate balance.

There is a good and very inexpensive e-book on raw conversion by Michael Frye. He uses Lightroom but the engine is the same as ACR and the sliders aren't difficult to find in the different interface. It's the first one on this page:

http://www.michaelfrye.com/books/books.html

PS and ACR are wonderful tools and well worth climbing up a curve!

The main issue with the image is that the background competes a lot with the bird, but that's not always something we can control. On the plus side, it's colors are pleasingly harmonious with the bird. You might try a slight desaturation of the yellows (most greens are predominantly yellow). As there is some yellow in the bird, this is best done in PS, using an adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer) and painting on its all-white (do-nothing) mask with a black brush to block the effect off the bird.

If this is a new technique, have a look at the Educational Resources forum, "Making Local Adjustments..."

[Stuart Edwards]

thank you Diane. i will read that book and see what i can pick up.