Herons Nesting, Take 2

[Wendy Kates]

This is a repost of yesterday's image, with less radical post-processing, in order to reduce the high contrast and the sharpening artifacts. Let me know if the light looks less harsh here, and if you have any other suggestions. Thanks for your input.

--Wendy

[John Flynn]

Have you tried reducing the highlights in a radical fashion and increasing the shadows? That can be slightly problematic and leave a flat picture but it may be better in this sort of light.
John

[Wendy Kates]

I originally reduced the highlights a lot in LR, before moving it into PS. I had never used the highlight/shadow filter in PS, but I tried it here, and I think it improves the image. I was reluctant to radically change the sliders, so let me know if you think this is sufficient, and if it helps. Thanks for your suggestion. --Wendy

[Diane Miller]

The idea of a raw file is that it contains a lot of tonal information. The view you see first in the raw converter is a sort of generic interpretation. Feel free to move the sliders as much as needed to get the best image. You can go too far, but you can also not go far enough. It can be a juggling game to balance the sliders in the Basic section, but it can give great results, or at least maximize the results, depending on the light captured. It takes some experience to see where the best result is.

I do like it better with the slightly lower exposure in the second image here, and the added room on the left. Good job of just squeaking in the rear end of the bird on the left. You could even add a little canvas there and extend the branch. A little more room on top would make that branch feel less crowded, or else crop into the branch to make the birds a little larger in the frame.

The main thing I see here is that the nest looks pixelated. The rest of the image is fine.

Neither post here has an embedded profile. You should convert to sRGB and embed the profile in order for more viewers to see the colors as correctly as possible. See the tutorial in Educational Resources about posting images on the web.