American Goldfinch

[Thomas Boysen]

Taken yesterday in my new feeding station with permanent blind in my backyard. Please critique away. I am especially interested whether the colours come across as too saturated or contrasty. I know his beak should be cleaner, but that's what you get at a feeding station.
Canon 7D, 500mm f/4L with 1.4 TC
1000/s at 5.6 with +2/3 (which I seem to need with just about all shots on the 7D)
ISO 400
some cropping ca. 20%
darkened with curves (dark -25) and -.20 exposure in LR3
Clarity +29
vibrancy +10

[Joel Eade]

Hello Thomas,

Nice close shot and nice background. I think you could desat. the yellows and maybe bring out more plumage details, also anoher round of sharpening could be applied. You may also get critique about the lack of detail in the blacks on this one. You might be able to remedy it with exposure, contrast and level adjustments.

Joel

[Dave Mills]

Hi Thomas, Good remarks by Joel!
Nice pose,HA and well placed within the frame.
Agree about lack of detail in the yellows and more in the blacks. I see some in the blacks some I'm sure they can be brought up.Exposure looks good on the whites in the tail area.
Overall a pleasing image!

[David Thomasson]

The red channel is pretty blown; that's why the details got lost. If you shot raw, it might be fixable.

[Lance Peters]

HI Thomas - agree with the guys - red channel is toast -going to have to go back to the raw for this one.
You do shoot in Raw - Right!!

[Thomas Boysen]

Thank you all for your comments. Sorry for responding so late but it took me some time to figure things out.
Indeed, I hadn't noticed that the red channel was blown. In LR the histogramme gave no indication of that but PS sure showed it clearly. I will have to check this in PS in the future when I have doubts.
Your comments also sharpened my view for colour with which I have had a struggle.
I tried the method for restoring clipped channels from the luminous landscape website, which seemed very complicated and I didn't understand a thing. Then I noticed the tutorial from David (Thanks!) on hot yellows here in the educational resources. After a number of attempts (I am not very knowlageable of PS) I came up with this version, which is better concerning saturation and detail in the yellows. However I feel that the colours I percieve in real life are more brilliant than this, but maybe that's just me.
Any further comments more than welcome.
Thomas