Great Crested Grebe

[Paul Burdett]

Took 1155 images over 3 hours...here's just one of them.

D500/500PF, 1/2000th sec@f7.1, iso1600, manual mode hh. Basic adjustments in ACR and PS, including removing a second catch light. Cheers.

[Andreas Liedmann]

hi Paul , lovely capture of the grebe .
looks like nice warm light , brought out some nice texture and detail from the darker feathers . on the other hand you lost some finer details in the red channel ... if you like possible to bring them back , iMHO.
comp looks good and I like the water ripples .
I would prefer a bit blue color tone in the water , if this would be mine . but not a deal breaker , just a variant

your patience paid off and tfs Andreas

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Andreas. Thank you for the feedback. I reduced the blue colour in the water as i thought it was too much but will take another look at the original file. How would you fix the red channel?

[Andreas Liedmann]

copy the green channel into the red channel , via the " image apply " command with the multiply blend mode in PS . restrict the blending to the lighter tones . this will create a deeper red channel in the highlights
perform this on a duplicate pixel layer ... set to luminosity

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Andreas. I tried your method but I'm unsure if I did it correctly. Here's a screen shot of the "apply image" I used. is that correct? I applied the change to the reds only using a mask...looks better. The Grebe as shown is before I applied the mask to the red on the neck. I've been using Ps for quite a while but always learning something new. The Grebe shown here is the original crop, not the one I posted. Cheers.

[Mike Poole]

Nice low frame of one of my favourite birds. Not an easy one to get close to on our shores. Interesting to see how the suggestions from Andreas pan out

Mike

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Paul ... just form demo .
the final result created from your OP.

[Andreas Liedmann]

here the ps workspace ...

before you do the ´apply image ´you need to highlight the red channel

I did the same adjustment twice , just repeat the same steps ...
added a black mask to layer one ( or copy of background )
then brushed the effect into the light areas of the subject .

hope that it is now clearer for you .

cheers Andreas

[Paul Burdett]

Thanks Mike. Yes, this is the closest I've been able to get to these birds.
Andreas: Thanks a ton...your method is a lot clearer now and it works very well. Cheers!:cheers:

[Andreas Liedmann]

hi Paul glad you managed to understand , sometimes difficult to explain via short statements ...