California Quail foraging in the overcast morning

[Melissa Usrey]

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I cropped the LHS closely because there was another quail to the left that was not in focus.

Canon 1 DX and 400 f/4 DO with 1.4 t.c., 560mm, 1/2000 sec. at f/5.6, ISO 500

[Bill Dix]

What a wonderful look at the striking plumage on this bird, in terrific light. Some space to the left would have been a plus, but you did what you had to do. I wonder if cropping a bit off the right would help mitigate the imbalance.

[Melissa Usrey]

Thanks Bill! I'll experiment with the RHS crop.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Meloissa, handsome subject! the specular highlights in the BG are a bit distracting I'd clone them out. there is blue cast on the quail and the head isn't quite sharp. I am wondering what kind of monitor do you have? is it calibrated?

[Melissa Usrey]

Arash, those highlights are water droplets (it was drizzling). In bright sunlight, the chest of the Quail looks grey, but in overcast light, it becomes quite blue. I calibrate using Spyder5 and my monitor is a high graphics "gaming" laptop (MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX). My laptop is actually running out of memory so I'm looking at buying a new one. Any suggestions?

[Isaac Grant]

I like the pose and the nice low angle. I agree with Arash. While these birds have a blue wash to their gray chests they are not this blue. Color needs to be corrected. Head could use more sharpening. Also this type of background is far from ideal. Not enough separation from the subject to get a nice blur and too far to be in focus. It just has that messy kind of feel to it.

[Melissa Usrey]

Thank you Isaac.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Melissa, the blue cast is coming from the processing not the light. i have noticed in your other posts too that the colors are off.

Generally a laptop screen is not suitable for critical image editing. Unfortunately calibration on most laptop screens has no impact on accuracy of colors as the screen itself is not able to produce a wide gammut. Gaming screen are usually even worse because they are designed for fast response at the expense of color gammut and dynamic range. If you want to excel at presentation of your photos consider using a high-quality external monitor that is specifically made for image processing, believe it or not it is as important as your camera and lens.

you may find more info here on my blog re color correction http://arihazeghiphotography.com/blog/color-correction-for-avian-photography/

best

[Melissa Usrey]

Isaac, about that color: yes, in certain light conditions (and with my Quail, damp), they are that blue. Here's a photo from All About Birds: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/PHOTO/LARGE/california_quail_4.jpg

[Melissa Usrey]

Thank you Arash

[arash_hazeghi]

Melissa,

The photo you linked in a pane 9 does not have a blue color cast like your image. Again I am not sure what your monitor is showing you but notice the white stripes, in your image those stripes are blue and cyan, versus in the real bird they are white. If in doubt, you can use the eye dropper in PS to read the RGB values from that area. I have photographed many quails myself, here is one for reference, this one was also taken under overcast light

hope this helps :S3:

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[Melissa Usrey]

Arash, I understand what you're saying. Possibly it is my monitor. Possibly it's my WB. I always have Joel Sartore's words in my ears when I take a photo: "Get it right in the camera." The processing I do in Lightroom is cropping, working with shadow and highlight sliders, and adjusting whites and blacks. Occasionally I use NIK filters in PS to remove noise and sharpen if need be. What I don't do is adjust color.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Melissa, the RAW files from digital cameras are monochrome (i.e. they are not RGB). It is the software that decodes the RAW file and then calculates the RGB value for each pixel. Thus WB correction is necessary and the first step in RAW conversion. By default LR tries to automatically calculate the color values but it often fails and you have to adjust it manually using the WB setting. It's best to look at a white reference for e.g. the white stripes on the head and make sure they are as close to white as possible. Alternatively if you use Canon DPP it is much more likely that the WB will be calculated correctly in the auto mode and less adjustment will be needed.

Hope this helps

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey if you want upload your RAW file and I'll process it for you

best

[Melissa Usrey]

Thanks Arash. I do have DPP but have not yet learned the program.

[Melissa Usrey]

Arash, I have Canon DPP but haven't yet learned how to process with it.

[Melissa Usrey]

Thanks!!! I have to see if I still have the RAW in an external hard drive. I only keep the RAW images I think I might one day wish to enter in a contest; This was never one of my favorites, so I'm not sure I have it.