Indigo Bunting

[Jack Backs]

I was revisiting some older images and started mulling over how some species population tend vary significantly from year to year. I couldn't buy
an image of an Indigo Bunting last summer. They were quite common the previous year(2016). This is probably my best image from that year. Taken
out of the window of my vehicle.
Nikon D500/500mmF4VRII/TC-14EIII
1/400s, iso400, f7.1

[Randy Stout]

Jack"

Vibrant colors, handsome bird, nicely scaled perch.

Well exposed.

On my monitor, the sharpening seems to be just a bit strong.

Because of his head angle/gaze direction, I would prefer a bit more room above, and bit less below.

Always fun to go back and revisit older images, always some jewels in there.

Cheers

Randy

[John Mack]

Nice pose on the bird. Agree with Randy about the sharpening.

[Jack Backs]

Thanks for the input. Is this any better? Very light sharpening applied after size reduction.

[Isaac Grant]

I love Indigo Buntings. Some of my favorite birds to photograph. You have a nice perch against a great background. Bird still looks over sharpened to me and also it is over saturated. Try addint 60-80 points of Cyan to the blues in selective color and see what that does for you.

[Arthur Morris]

In addition to the valid suggestions above I would add that the bird is too tight in the frame at the top. Way too much room below and not enough above ...

with love, artie

[Jack Backs]

Thanks for the feedback Artie. Is this crop a little more of what you're looking for? I also warmed the color temperature from 4400 to 5000 and dropped the tint a little, no added saturation.
I only applied a small amount of sharpening to the raw file and this is straight size reduction with no sharpening or other manipulation.
Jack

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Jack,
First off, I forgot to mention: thanks a stacks for your membership support. The image design/crop is 1000 times better with the repost for my eye :)

You wrote above, "dropped the tint a little, no added saturation."

#1: I very, very, very rarely touch tint at all. I cannot remember the last time that I did ...

#2: What folks fail to realize is that many images with deep REDs abd BLUEs come out of the cameras well over-saturated. It is our job to tone that down. You can play with the Saturation a bit but playing with the Luminance slider often does a better job. Or, you can learn to use Selective COlor adjustments to do the same thing.

with love, artie
ps: highly recommended unless all of the above makes 100% sense to you: my Current Workflow eGuide (Digital Basics II here. (http://birdsasart-shop.com/the-birds-as-art-current-workflow-e-guide-digital-basics-ii/)

with love, artie

[Jack Backs]

Thanks again Artie. I don't normally touch tint either, but I'll have to admit that I wasn't even aware of the Selective Color Tool in Photoshop until just now.
Having found it, I don't think I'll ever be comfortable using it as I have a significant red/green color blind deficiency and just don't trust my eyes on fine tuning
colors even though they may be in the blue range. Color temperature is about the thing I will venture to change. I do use Luminance far more than Saturation in
camera raw. The intense blue of this bird probably makes it somewhat of an outlier.
On a side note, I ran across this forum after watching a B&H video of one of your presentations. I have been somewhat reluctant to do a lot of posting as you can
tell by my original crop that I'm not particularly proficient in the "art" of bird photography and not sure about critiquing anyone else's images. I have a degree in
Chemical Engineering and a Doctor of Dental Medicine. I will freely admit I am more of a square head technician than an artist.
I probably should start participating more as the critiques of the few images I've posted have been very helpful. A few months ago I posted a hunting Snowy Egret
image and made some changes on the advice of some of the comments. I won one of the images of the year(actually the highest rated image by the judges) on The
Nikonians website. https://blog.nikonians.org/archives/2018/02/best_of_nikonians.html

Jack

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Jack, Thanks for your comments. Having your images critiqued and critiquing the images of others is a deadly combination for improving your photography. The more you post the more you learn. And for lots more learning, check out my daily educational blog.

with love, artie

ps: congrats on the Nikonian image; it is a beauty.