Handsome Dude...

[Arthur Morris]

This male Northern Cardinal posed for Grace Scalzo and me at a feeder set-up this morning at Morton's NWR in Noyac, Long Island, NY.

Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with a 25mm Extension tube and the EOS-1D Mark III. Fill flash at -1 stop.

This is about 95% full frame. I did a bunch in Photshop including some bill clean-up. Will share additional info and post the original in a day or two.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Susan Liddle]

He appears to be smiling and cocking his head just for you! Love the perch and the background color.
And the detail of the feathers, so soft to touch...... beautiful. :)

[Grace Scalzo]

So Sweet! That pose is perfect.

[Doug Brown]

Excellent pose and perfect exposure, with nicely controlled reds and good detail in the blacks. I like the frost on the underside of the perch.

[Bryan Hix]

Just MVHO, but I don't necessarily like the scrunched down pose and the perch is kind of plain. Still a beautiful bird and of course the exp is perfect.:) I liked the one you had in the BAA bulletin better in the snow.

[Mike Veltri]

Nice pose Arthur and I love the pastel background. The frost on the perch is the same color as the background and the small speckling in the perch is as well. Just wondering if the perch should have the blue channel desaturated. I also see it in the birds talons.

Happy Holidays,
Mike

[Jim Fenton]

Artie....

I kinda like the perch as it's simple. Sharpness is perfect up front but tails off towards to rear to quickly for me...perhaps because of the tube?

The things that detract to me here are two:

A) The blue of the background snow as it looks like it was soaked in a dilute Tidy Bowl solution (not quite but it does look unrealistically blue for snow) especially in light of B. All of the frost on the perch shows up as blue also.

B) The birds looks obvioulsy flashed relative to the darker bluish snow background.

Also, in looking at it in CS4 and invoking Gamut warning...a lot of the reds show up as out of gamut.

[Mack Hicks]

I like the smile and the sharpness of the head and body with the feather details. To me the perch is too washed out. Can you selectively add contrast to the perch?

[Kiran Poonacha]

Handsome Indeed Guru, nice eye contact and details, the Bg adds a mood to this..

[Harshad Barve]

Beautiful image with nice BG and control on REDs here
TFS

[Duane Noblick]

I like the head angle and innocent look on the Cardinals face (although I prefer seeing Cardinals with their crest up). Details and the reds look fine to me. For me this looks flashed and why I don't use it in photography....I feel shadows need to be where they are using natural light. Personal taste and just a rookie opinion.

[denise ippolito]

Artie, Beautiful details. I like the BG color and the to me the light colored perch adds to the winter feel. Nicely done.

[LouBuonomo]

Not a relaxed pose but I find the look inquisitive...
Lou

[Arthur Morris]

First off. A general comment. Thanks to all for stopping by and especially for the constructive criticism. When I posted this image I sort of liked the artificially blue version. But after carefully reading the criticisms above I took a second look and re-optimized the image. I think that the repost here is a huge improvement in many areas including several that nobody mentioned. :) So thanks a ton to all for helping me improve this one.

[Arthur Morris]

Here is the original as it came out of DPP processed only for contrast with RAW sharpening at 3. So this was in fact a small crop with some bill clean-up work. In addition, I used a series of QMs and some Clone Stamp Tool and Patch Tool work to remove two nubs from the branch and reduce the third one (the one on the bottom). Now on to the specifics.

[Arthur Morris]

Just MVHO, but I don't necessarily like the scrunched down pose and the perch is kind of plain. Still a beautiful bird and of course the exp is perfect.:) I liked the one you had in the BAA bulletin better in the snow.

Hi Brian. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I love the pose and the perch. Go figure.

[denise ippolito]

Artie, I liked the orig. post at first also w/ the blue BG. But after seeing the repost -I really like it alot more. Nicely done.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Denise. I feel the same way.

As for Mike's and Jim's concerns about the very blue BKGR in the ORIG post and the blue cast on the perch, first off, thanks a ton for you comments as they were the ones that prompted me to take a second shot at this one. Strangely enough, the blue was increased first by using Robert O'Toole's Average Blur Color Balance trick. Sometimes it works perfectly at 100% but often I reduce the opacity to taste. In this case I originally liked the blue... Then, I added BLACK to the WHITES in Selective Color and that made the BLUE bluer. And still I like it. Then.... For the repost in pane

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Jim,

re:

I kinda like the perch as it's simple.

Me too.

Sharpness is perfect up front but tails off towards to rear to quickly for me...perhaps because of the tube?

I do not think so. D-O-F near or at minimum focusing distance is miniscule even when stopped down one stop to f/8 as I was here. More importantly, the sharpness of the perch that is angling slightly towards or away is never of concern to me and the same could be said about o-of tails (as in this image).

The things that detract to me here are two:

A) The blue of the background snow as it looks like it was soaked in a dilute Tidy Bowl solution (not quite but it does look unrealistically blue for snow) especially in light of B. All of the frost on the perch shows up as blue also.

Agree as above.

B) The birds looks obviously flashed relative to the darker bluish snow background.

At no point did the bird look obviously flashed to me. How doe sit look to you in the image in Pane 14?

Also, in looking at it in CS4 and invoking Gamut warning...a lot of the reds show up as out of gamut.

Even in the original post the color histogram showed no clipping but for the repost I was--after considering your comment here--much more aggressive in toning down the REDs. I added 30 points of CYAN to the REDs in Selective Color and then repeated that on a small section near the side of the head/neck that appeared detail-less.

#1: How do the REDs in the repost look?

#2: Please let us know with some step by step intstructions how to check the gamut warnings for the various colors in Photoshop. I have no clue...

[Arthur Morris]

I like the head angle and innocent look on the Cardinals face (although I prefer seeing Cardinals with their crest up). Details and the reds look fine to me. For me this looks flashed and why I don't use it in photography....I feel shadows need to be where they are using natural light. Personal taste and just a rookie opinion.

As it turns out, the REDs did need more work. As far as flash, I almost always use it on songbirds and when the flash does not fire I almost invariably choose the flashed image over the un-flashed one and that goes both for sunny and cloudy conditions. As I am always working right down sun angle on sunny days my images do not have many shadows. And yes, just personal taste.

[kenn threed]

Artie....

....Also, in looking at it in CS4 and invoking Gamut warning...a lot of the reds show up as out of gamut.

Fwiw - There's an interesting discussion on the usefulness of the PS Gamut Warning here:
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21960

Perhaps this is helpful to some?

Kenn

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Ken. Perhaps you could share the basics of checking for an out of gamut warning with us here?

[Arthur Morris]

PS to Kenn. I checked the link and there is nothing there on how to check for an out of gamut warning. Please do share. Did you check the repost?

[kenn threed]

Artie,

In my older version of Photoshop the Gamut Warning is invoked from the View Menu (Shift+Ctrl+Y).
Not sure if it's still in the same place in CSx.

hth,

Kenn

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Kenn, Simple enough, and it works. In the repost, there was a smattering of gray out of gamut warnings. As I understand it, the warning only shows that the colors are out of gamut (not that I understand that completely) but not by how much. If something is grey it might be only slightly out of gamut and will make a fine print so I am not sure of its relevance here. Maybe Jim Fenton can educate us further.

[Jim Fenton]

Artie....

Sorry for not getting back to this post till now...I've been kinda busy dealing with some gear issues which hopefully are now resolved.

The repost looks a whole lot better to me :) I think I was a bit overly agressive with my "Tidy Bowl" comment and I apologize...I was having a frustrating day with a camera / lens manufacturer that particular day.

As far as checking colors for being out of gamut, I convert to srgb early on since that's what I'll be posting and I simply go to VIEW > GAMUT WARNING. I do this before I do anything with saturation of selective color. If I'm working on red / yellow birds or even scenes with a lot of warm light in it, I'll check this before I do anything. It turns those area out of gamut a sort of gray and you can watch it change as you make adjustments.

Theoretically, once the gray disappears, you're supposed to be good but at times, it leaves things looking flat, so you have to compromise at times.

[Arthur Morris]

No probelma and thanks for the out of gamut help. As for the Tidy Bowl comment, that was a good analogy :)