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Joel Arrington
02-27-2008, 04:04 AM
Canon 40D, manual, 1/100 @ f/8, ISO 400, flash fill
Arthur Morris
02-27-2008, 05:07 AM
Hi Joel, The reds here are over-saturated; as a result, the breast and face are completely without feather detail. They look as if they were painted with enamel. Proper technique with cardinals is to desaturate the red channel only about 8-16 points. Love the pose, the toes on the stalk, and the COMP. The stalk/leaf in front of the bird is distracting as is the diagonal stalk. later and love, artie
Joel Arrington
02-27-2008, 05:36 AM
The amount of saturation is minimal. The enamel-like surface is result of noise reduction, also as minimal as I could make it. Will repost without either saturation or NR.
Arthur Morris
02-27-2008, 05:44 AM
As above, you need to be de-Saturating the reds on cardinals, not saturating them minimally.

later and love, artie
Maxis Gamez
02-27-2008, 06:19 AM
I have to agree with Artie. The reds are taking details from your subject. The BG is very distracting especially the Lief in front of him.
Joel Arrington
02-27-2008, 06:55 AM
I de-saturated 20 points, skipped NR altogether and removed some grass stems and leaves. Thanks to Maxis and you for gratis instruction. Much appreciated. Never occurred to me to DE-saturate. But that NR sometimes seems to give everything a coat of paint.
Dave Phillips
02-27-2008, 08:27 AM
Hi joel, bird looks much better....that's a great tip on desat red channel.
I might suggest just doing the noise reduction on the bg only
Arthur Morris
02-29-2008, 08:32 AM
Hey Joel, The cardinal looks 1000 times better. You need to learn Quick Masking as your cloning efforts leave a lot to be desired... You must learn to avoid the repeating patterns as they are a dead give-away to sloppy technique. Lots to learn I know.. Been there, done that.

later and love, artie
Joel Arrington
02-29-2008, 03:35 PM
QM is on my list to learn.

In a hurry to post, I may work at lower quality than if the photo were to be printed, or, heaven help us, sold.
I brought home 160 frames last night and, already behind, have been laboring over them since early morning. What with other duties piling up, I will not have time to spit in my hand until the middle of next week, assuming everything goes smoothly.

Thanks, Artie, for continuing advise and encouragement.