Brown-headed Nuthatch

[Michael Moore]

Critiques welcome. I like the framing by the foreground branch but am worried the background is too busy. Not sure how best to reduce that.

Canon 7DII, Canon 100-400 mkII, processed in ACR, photoshop and Topaz
ISO 400, f/8, 1/800 handheld, bird attracted by screech owl tape

Mike Moore

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[Bill Dix]

That's a wonderfully detailed shot of this little nuthatch -- sharp but not over-sharpened. He does look a little concerned about the screech-owl's presence. I searched the woods on Chincoteague last fall hoping for a good shot of this species but never got one this close, but I didn't try the owl trick. As for the bg, you might try one of several things. First would be to make this more of a pano crop, cropping out about half of the distance from the top of frame to the bird's head, which would remove some of the bg; and at the same time maybe crop a bit off the right, maybe enough to take out the black spot on the branch, to put the bird less in the center. I don't know how large a crop this already is, but it looks as if the detail would hold up. The other possibility might be to carefully select the bird and branch on a layer, then on an inverted layer select one of the intermediate greenish tones and use a low opacity brush to smooth out some of the brighter spots.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely shot I have never seen one of these before. I have slight reservation over the sharpening, I get the impression it is a tad coarse - a little finer may have been better. Perhaps the radius you selected is a little bit on the large side? Was Topaz for noise or sharpening or both or did you use Smart Sharpen (and one round or two rounds) in Photoshop?

[Roy Priest]

The detail on this little guy is amazing. I've never seen one before either, but I'd sure like to. Bill gave you excellent advice on improving this already great shot.

[Michael Moore]

Thanks for all the comments so far. I am a notorious over sharpener. I am doing better since my cataract surgery now that the whole world doesn't look blurry anymore! I think some of the coarseness also comes from a pretty significant crop and is less noticeable on the full resolution original, but I will try to tone it down a tad. I like the cropping suggestion and will try to work on the background as you suggest. Never tried to paint in with color before (just burned and dodged), but I see why that would help and be more natural. Forgot to mention this was shot at Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware where these guys are common and often photogenically cooperative.

[John Robinson]

Great looking bird and great advice although the BG doesn't bother me too much. Does look a bit"crunchy" but better that way than the other I suppose !
Cheers
JohnR

[Michael Moore]

OK, I messed with the jpg to try out some of these suggestions, especially Bill's. Obviously, I really need to go back to the RAW image and start over especially to remove some of the crunchiness. I applied a little bit of lens blur to the jpg to try to simulate the effect. I really liked painting out the bright parts of the background and will add that to my arsenal of techniques. The new crop is also better, although its pushing the limits. Anyway, I look forward to redoing the RAW image when I have time, but this pilot of applying the fixes to the jpg is a definite improvement. Thanks for all the help.

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