Cape May

[Aaron Lee]

Hello,noob here. Thought I'd jump in feet first and get whacked over the head.:)
50D,F3.5,1/8000 [ugh!]-0-ec,no flash
Any way to save the yellow? Thanks! Great site!!http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4045/4175107885_7acc8a9aec_o.jpg

[Juan Aragonés]

Hi Aaron and wellcome on board :-)
There is a lot of noisein the shadows of the image and I think r¡that it is due to something that you did on the RAW conversion to recover the shadows resulting in noise and contrast reduction (obviously, the light is very intense and there shold be more contrast in the image). You can run a noise reduction filter on the background (not on the bird) and try a new RAW conversion.
I am not familiar with this species but yellows seems to be not very toasted in my opinion.
The BG is a bit busy but I like :-)

Hope this help and keep them coming

[Tony Whitehead]

Welcome, Aaron. Love the softness of the sky and blossoms in the BG. Good comments by Juan re the noise - suspect too much "fill light" in RAW conversion. Agree that the yellows don't look too bad but would need to look at the histogram to be sure.
This thread has useful info re managing yellow problems - http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=35243 . Plenty more good info in Educational resources.
Moving marginally to the left may have improved separation between the bill and the near flower. Looking forward to more of your images.
Whacking over the head isn't the BPN style:):)

[Dave Blinder]

Nice photo Aaron, I think even a low level pass of Neat Image or Noise Ninja would do a world of wonder here. You could try to use the desaturate sponge tool on the neck at a low opacity on a separate layer. Other than the neck, colors look great to me.

- Dave

[Aaron Lee]

Thanks for the info. I really should be up front and admit that I just have Elements and I'm an extreme rookie at PP-I've never done a mask,layer,or anything like that but would like to learn.

This was the same bird/equip. a few minutes prior but I didn't seem to have the same noise issues for some reason.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3351/3512092522_d4da943fc8_o.jpg
I will try to post a few more images so you can evaluate where I stand on getting the exposure correct. Thanks again.