Theme: Balancing Act.

[Karl Egressy]

I took this image a few years back and might have posted it back than.
Thanks for looking and commenting.

Canon 1D Mark IV
Canon 500 f4.0 L IS +1.4x II.
ISO 800
1/800 s
f7.1

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Karl. lovely colors, tack sharp, good exposure. I wish the left hand side rock weren't there. I'd suggest trying to crop tighter. Loi

[keith mitchell]

Lovely pose on this beautiful duck Karl, colour and detail are amazing .

Merry Christmas.

Keith.

[Bill Dix]

Fabulous pose, and certainly colorful. Did you saturate this one? It seems almost technicolor, but could be the light. I think the comp needs the space you gave him on the left, because that's where he's looking. Sure it would be better without the rock, although it's not a big deal IMO and not worth cloning it out.

[Karl Egressy]

Fabulous pose, and certainly colorful. Did you saturate this one? It seems almost technicolor, but could be the light. I think the comp needs the space you gave him on the left, because that's where he's looking. Sure it would be better without the rock, although it's not a big deal IMO and not worth cloning it out.

Thanks, Bill.
I used highlight shadow I don't remember at what percent.
Also my hue/saturation adjustment layer has a default setting of +4. Sometimes I go up and down.
It is hard to remember (actually impossible for me) what I did back then.
Here is the original.
You can see what happens if you copy it to your computer and use highlight/shadow tool: the colors come out more so in the darker areas.

[Bill Dix]

I see what you mean. I've had that experience too. The colors in the original (pane5) look pretty good to me. I might be tempted to at least desaturate the red channel in the OP.

[arash_hazeghi]

pose and details are great, colors look just a bit over-saturated to my eye but not by much, the main issue here is the busy BG and the big OOF rock that;s somewhat throwing the composition off balance on the left border, I wish it wasn't there.

TFS

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Karl, reding the comments I think somewhere between the two would probably be about right, however if I had to choose I would go with pane 5. Agree also with Arash and the BKG, if perhaps you were able to go a bit more to the left then it may have helped? IMHO Shadow/Highlight is a tough tool and one to be used with a light hand, there are better ways to control things, but ultimately a well exposed image is the best place to start from. I also feel it's too tight at the foot, moving the whole crop down would have helped, but you may also be constrained by focus points if you had one spot on the eye???

TFS
Steve

[D. Robert Franz]

Love the lighting here. Great subject and a fine composition!