Female Brown-headed Cowbird

[Rodney Flowers]

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/%7Eflowersr/Critiques/April2010/20090711Brown-headed_Cowbird-_MG_8622-Web.jpg
I had to shoot this picture at ISO 1600. I normally try to avoid shooting that high, but I thought I would give it a try and see if I could get a decent image after post processing. I used Topaz Denoise to get rid of the noise. How does the noise look? Any comments appreciated.

Canon EOS 50D
Canon EF600mm f4/L IS
ISO 1600 1/640sec f6.3

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Rodney, to answer your question...great job on the noise removal!! No noise apparent. I love the inquisitive pose, good perch, and beautiful BG. There is, however, a heavy blue cast to the image. You can desaturate the blue and cyan channels, and also raise the color temp if needed. Good comp and details!

[Bill Dix]

Lovely pose, detail and composition. Green bg strikes me as a bit over the top, and the blue cast is apparent, as noted above. No objectionable noise on my screen. Looks good.

[Rodney Flowers]

Thanks for the comments. I found an article in the tutorial section on color casts I will look through that and see if I can get rid of the blue cast. Maybe getting rid of the blue cast will make the green background look better. If you have any other ideas on what would make the green background look better let me know.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Rodney, the green background looks great...it's the blue cast on the bird and perch that needs to be dealt with. In the repost, I've completely reduced the blue and cyan channels's saturation (in PS Hue/Saturation). Then I went to Selective Color, chose the red channel, and added some yellow to it which gave the cowbird a bit less of a monochromatic look. A bit more tweaking could be made, but this took about 30 seconds :-) The background did change a little, but you could/should mask the bird first and work on it only...

[Rodney Flowers]

Thanks Daniel, that gives me something to compare to when I try to do it myself.