Optimize this image !!!

[Alfred Forns]

Image is of a pheasant from Bosque Not quite what I would like one than I'm keeping for my records These guys are difficult to get and even more in flight

Close to original as captured See what you can do as far as enhancing This is the type that can get you in trouble real fast Will post my version at the end !!!

Comments welcome and much appreciated

[JH Tugs]

Ok, 1st attempt for you.

Curves (using an s-curve) to increase the contrast.
Background darkened (I felt it looked a little washed out)
Subtly small (I hope) amount of unsharp mask.

Not 100% sure about it - there's an amount of fringing on the bird, possibly because it was jpeg to begin with. I'll take another look shortly and see if I want to take another approach to optimizing the image.

[Doug West]

http://www.dwphotographer.com/pop/pheasant_01.jpg

A better file to work with and I could've done better.

Basically, I enlarged the pheasant, did some basic adjustments and
added some clouds.

Doug

[Ian McHenry]

This is fun !!!
My process
1.Darken Highlights, 2.Adjust Levels, 3.Add Brightness, 4.Sharpen, 5.Plus small sat'n.
I tried it with noise reduction but didn't like it so not used.
Ian Mc

[Anita Rakestraw]

Used a variety of sharpening techniques to add contrast, clarity and sharpness; and added gradient background.

[Alfred Forns]

I'm impressed !!!! I thought that there would be some problem in keeping the colors Would be hard to pick the best one and would not include mine among them !!!

About the only thing I might have done different in mine is blowing up the eye then selecting I lighten the yellow then saturated Also darken the pupil a bit I find this beneficial for most birds the eye is normally the most prominent feature of the bird

Here is mine but you guys BTG !!!! ...... that is big time good :):)

[Dave Phillips]

all very interesting and revealing, esp Anita's for bringing out details.
Alfred's appears cleanest with nice eye

[Todd Frost]

I gave it a go, heres my convert. Added a few clouds to give a little more dramatic sky.
Todd

[JH Tugs]

The eye was interesting - I usually apply some USM to the eye if it needs it, but when I zoomed in on the eye in the jpeg, there really weren't enough pixels to sensibly work with! Good thoughts Al on the yellow though - that works very well.

[Ian McHenry]

I'd go for a blend between Anita's and Al's edit.
Ian Mc

[Anita Rakestraw]

Fun exercise! I like the clouds that Doug and Todd added.