What to do?

[Joerg Rockenberger]

I think this image has potential but I am just not sure what to do with it in Photoshop. If I am playing around with levels to make the feathers white I quickly get images which look fake.

Thanks for your help! JR

Canon 30D, 400F5.6, 1/1250s, F6.3, ISO-400, EC +1

[Judd Patterson]

Hi John, what a lovely angle on this flying avocet. The head-on pose is often hard to capture well, so congratulations there. You really can't make the feathers much lighter or they will merge with the very monotone background. Sure wish that this bird was against a blue sky background to give more separation and to provide a little more color. Some might try to replace the background, but I'd recommend you give a Color Balance layer a try. Select the all the sky and then using a Color Balance adjustment layer, try something like -50 cyan, -20 magenta, +80 blue on the midtones...just to see a possible start and experiment from there. Other than that, I'd just look for better light for the next photograph!

http://www.juddpatterson.com/BPN/avocet_fix_rough.jpg

[Joerg Rockenberger]

Hi Judd,
Wow. This looks already much better. Thank you for taking the time and playing around with the picture. A couple of questions if you don't mind:

- how did you select the background? I had big problems with the magic wand or the lasso as the selection always picked up parts of the bird.
- it looks as you've also increased the saturation for the bird giving the tail feathers now a slightly reddish cast. I guess a selection of only the head and breast would avoid this...

JR

[Judd Patterson]

Hey John, for selecting I often use the magic wand. In this case, with a tolerance of 11, it selects almost exactly what you need. If you continue to have problems, then I would look into more advanced selection techniques such as masks where you can use the paint tools to fine-tune problem areas such as where white feathers meet up with a light background.

As far as the saturation issue, yes it does look like I did something there. I don't remember doing it, but the reddish hue to the white feathers remains!! At least you have the right idea on how you would avoid that when increasing saturation.