Curlew at Sunset

[Aidan Briggs]

Curlew silhouette at Morro Bay beach. It's a great place to be at sunrise/set.

Note: The saturation of this image was not increased at all

50D, 100-400 at 400
1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 500
About 50% of full frame

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Hello Aidan.
You are going to kill me but I increased the saturation of this image a bit.

I was having problems when I went to save it for web since the colors looked wash out, the I saw that you have selected Prophoto as the color space. Not big deal.

I tried to make the bird looks darker and the environment more dramatic, may be I didn't achieve it though.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

I like both images, though I feel Juan's repost has more punch. But I was not there, so I am commenting on what I think it probably should look like. :) Anyway, very nice silhouette indeed. I can see some markings on the body of the bird, but only if I look at the monitor from a very slight angle, which is probably not a big deal. You could perhaps make the entire bird just black?

Thanks for posting. :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

Colour-wise I'm thinking somewhere in the middle would be best - but ccloser to the original. I would be tempted to crop it a bit from bottom (as posted about a one inch trim ). Looks like it may need an ever so slight CCW rotation? Good catch - by both you and the curlew.

[Grady Weed]

I second Daniels view here. A lot more closer to the original color. the re-post is way too saturated, but it gets the point across. I love the water color, the glow is killer.

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks for the repost Juan, but I have to agree with Daniel and Grady here. Although maybe just a bit more saturation or darkening would have improved it.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Another vote for something in the middle and I would put the bird lower in the frame.

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Colour-wise I'm thinking somewhere in the middle would be best - but ccloser to the original. I would be tempted to crop it a bit from bottom (as posted about a one inch trim ). Looks like it may need an ever so slight CCW rotation? Good catch - by both you and the curlew.

I gave it another try. Suggestions included.

[Tony House]

Original looks nice to me, don't often get real deep red sunsets in my country, come to think of it don't often get any sun.... :-)

Nice work.
Tony

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks everyone. I think I still prefer the original, though now that I am thinking about it I would have to say that a slice off the bottom would improve this image.

[Arthur Morris]

As would deepening the blacks a bit by moving the shadow slider past the clipping point (while holding the ALT key). Had you moved a bit to your left, you could have better paralleled the subject (that is slightly angled away from you). All in all, however, I like it a lot. Esp. the sand crab.

[Juan Aragonés]

I like the idea of adding a bit of saturation to the original file but not as much as Juan Carlos did in his first repost. The problem with adding too much saturation, specially in the red channel, is that you are going to reduce details in the areas with more red and more saturated. It is clearly visible in the repost when compared to the original post. (please, have a look on this thread http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=26485)

The bird´s silouette is really nice and the prey in the bill a big bonus. A very goof image that I like a lot! ;-)