Blue Heron flight

[RoxanaRosell]

This image was created at Venice Rookery, Fl with a Canon 30D, 100-400 lens, ISO 640 at f/6.3 and 1/2000.

[Steve Foss]

Roxana, you've done well with this, IMO. The composition is very good. I like the wing position and the branch in the bird's bill, and you've left the right amount of room in front of the bird so my eye travels where the bird is going.

The bird is in the shade, while it's clear the reflection is of trees along the far shore with the sun on them, so you have a bit of an issue there. If you're working your pp in photoshop, a little work in shadows/highlights to emphasize shadow detail would be a good thing, as might be dropping mid-range levels a bit to brighten the bird. I'd also suggest selective sharpening by lassoing the bird and sharpening it without sharpening the background.

Also, if it falls within your ethics, cloning out the dark branches above and in front of the bird's bill would remove distractions. Lastly, the 100-400 really shines if you can stop it down to f8. It's noticeably sharper at f8 than f5.6. Is this a crop? If so, how much?

[Steve Foss]

Here's a light re-do in CS2. I hope you don't mind, and I'm sorry if you don't like that I've taken liberties with your fine image.

First I dropped highlight levels a bit, then dropped mid-range levels a bit more. Because the bird is shaded, it caused a blue cast, so I went back to levels and dropped the blue range in RGB, which slightly brought the reds and greens to the fore and warmed the image. Then I lassoed the bird and sharpened it separately, leaving the background alone. Last I lassoed the face of the bird and desaturated because the white still looked quite blue/purple. I see upon posting that it could probably stand just a little bit more mid-range brightening.

This is all according to my monitor and just to my own tastes, as well. Tastes and monitors DO differ. :)

[RoxanaRosell]

Thanks Steve, the picture is not a crop. I am delighted with your comments and suggestions since there is a lot a have to learn with photoshop.:)

[Milo Burcham]

Roxana,
The previous comments seem right on the money, and his the increased sharpness and contrast really help.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Steve's suggestions helped a lot and the pose is very nice. I think it needs a bit CW rotation.

[Jody Melanson]

Hopefully you Roxana and Steve don't mind me editing this image. I straightened the image first. I then duplicated the Layer with CTRL + J. I changed the Blend Mode on this new Layer to Screen, thus brightening the entire image. Then, created a Brightness/Contrast Layer. I boosted the Contrast until it looked right to me. I then created a Saturation Layer and and decreased the saturation on the Blue and Cyan sliders. Increased the Green and Yellow sliders, slightly.

http://jmelanson.smugmug.com/photos/242132900-O-1.jpg

[Maxis Gamez]

Hi Roxana,

I think Jody did a huge improvement with your image.

[RoxanaRosell]

Jodi, as helpful as always. Thanks a lot.