Great Egret

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image a couple days ago at Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County, Florida. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED image captured at 400mm
1/1600 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 1600 AWB
Post processed in Lightroom Classic CC and Photoshop CC 2018
Cropped for composition and presentation

[Bill Dix]

A handsome flight shot, Joe. Stands out nicely against the background. It almost looks as if the egret has damaged the tip of its upper mandible.

[Glenn Pure]

Joe, these are great birds to catch in flight and you've done well here. Great wing position and direction of travel slightly towards you. Getting the tones and rendering of detail in the whites is always hard with these but you've done pretty well here, I think. Only thing I'm unsure about - is there a slight blue tint to the bird? Looks a little that way to me but I just did a minor fiddle to the colour balance on my monitor so maybe it's me and I need to revisit that?

[Arthur Morris]

To check for the BLUE in the white feathers go to Hue/Saturation in PS, pick the BLUE (and the CYAN) channels from the dropdown menu, and them move the slider to the right to 100% :)

with love, a

ps: love the downstroke!

[Joseph Przybyla]

To check for the BLUE in the white feathers go to Hue/Saturation in PS, pick the BLUE (and the CYAN) channels from the dropdown menu, and them move the slider to the right to 100% :)

with love, a

ps: love the downstroke!

Hi Arthur, I did as you suggested. There was blue in the white feathers as Glenn noted. Most likely from the strong overcast sky. I adjusted the white balance on the white feathers to correct. This is a corrected repost.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing, commenting, and suggesting improvements. Very much appreciated...

[Arthur Morris]

Better as far as the BLUE but the color seems off to me -- too yellow/too green and too flat ... I tried to do a Curves Color Balance adjustment on it but the WHITE and BLACK points were a bit too tight. I tried a 70% Average Blur Color Balance adjustment and liked that better. I cleaned up with mess behind the near wing and selectively sharpened the face with a Contrast Mask. All (plus tons more) as detailed in my new Workflow e-Guide (AKA DB II) here. (http://birdsasart-shop.com/the-birds-as-art-current-workflow-e-guide-digital-basics-ii/)

ps: I think that I could do even better starting from scratch. If you would like to send me the RAW with a large file transfer service to the e-mail address on the blog I would try converting it in ACR and see how I do. Happy Bird Day.

with love, artie

[Joseph Przybyla]

It has been said that three's a charm, I hope so. I started from the beginning... this time setting cloudy for the white balance. In Photoshop I reduced noise on the image at 60% and cleaned up the area near the rear wing and legs. I took the image back into Lightroom and sharpened it, also softened the background and using the Targeted Adjustment Tool in Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity I desaturated the white feathers removing the blue. Hopefully this is better, my eyes are in training so please let me know. Thank you all for the critique and suggestions.

[Glenn Pure]

The white is certainly better Joe but I think the latest repost has lost some of the contrast and details in the feathers that were there in the earlier versions and made this quite a nice shot. The background also looks a bit thin. I'd drop the exposure/brightness back a little on the whole frame.

[Joseph Przybyla]

The white is certainly better Joe but I think the latest repost has lost some of the contrast and details in the feathers that were there in the earlier versions and made this quite a nice shot. The background also looks a bit thin. I'd drop the exposure/brightness back a little on the whole frame.

Easily done, thank you for commenting.