Ruddy Duck note card

[wendell westfall]

D70s 70-300 @270mm 1/100 f5.6 ISO200 0EV

This photo of the little guy was taken a while back. I've used it as one of the various images I put on small note cards I print for friends -- thought I'd post it for C&C. Though my camera settings were still available, I found I'd lost a history of any adjustments I might have made. Please comment how I could improve my presentation.

Wendell

[Lance Peters]

Hi wendell - Cool looking bird - looks a little dark on my screen.

I lightened a bit - sharpened the eye a tad and did some NR on he background.

any better??

[wendell westfall]

Hi Lance -- yes, I do like the eye better and the NR adjustment . . . but I'm not sure about the lighter body. i kinda like the more "contrasty" color on its back. However, could be my monitor, or my "eye".

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Wendell This is one difficult to duck to photograph ... can only do with excellent conditions like you had !!

I like the lighter water and other enhancements, sets the duck great. Do agree on having the body a little darker, probably an in between favoring the darker. Excellent capture

[Nonda Surratt]

Nice job Wendell. Agree with Alfred on the rest especially the body

[Harold Davis]

nicely done, wendell! just a little NR on the water and the eye work and you have a big winner!!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like Lance's repost Wendell, with the NR. Jpegs usually change colour when you are reposting. Also would tone down the whites on the cheeks a bit:)

[Katie Rupp]

Another duck with alot of contrast = challenging exposure. Nice job, Wendell, noise reduction enhances it.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Wendell,
I like the composition and capture. I like the colors in your original but like the eye definition in Mr. Peters' repost...I too would like a happy medium in between both...good show...:cool:

[David Thomasson]

Nice capture of a beautiful animal. I'm not sure whether I did this little guy any good or not. The greenish cast overall comes, I assume from the cloud conditions, but in any case greens work against the reds and russets in the feathers. I didn't enhance the reds, but just removed the green cast. The water suffers not so much from noise as from jpeg artifacts due to low resolution save, so I applied surface blue to smooth that out a bit.

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/7015/duckyj6.jpg

[wendell westfall]

Hi David -- I like what you did to make the body pop, compared with my drab presentation. But I think I prefer the colorization around (back and below) the body on mine -- your re-post in just that limited area showing through the water's surface seems to me a little too "pinkish", or wine-colored. Thanks for your re-post; it is an improvement, I think . . . and I learned something because of it.

[David Thomasson]

Hi David -- I like what you did to make the body pop, compared with my drab presentation. But I think I prefer the colorization around (back and below) the body on mine

The power of layer masks. Nothing to it.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9646/ducklr3.gif