Black Redstart

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi

I really like the bird and the detail in these blacks BUT hate the BG!

Unfortunately things happen so fast with this guy appearing for about 5 milliseconds - aint that the way lol

So, what to do with the BG, and of course anything else :2eyes2:

Canon 40D 100-400 @ 400 f 10.0, SS 1/800, evaluative, A1 Servo
black and white adjusted in levels, USM one pass at 80, 30-40 crop No NR as yet

Rich

[Geoff Warnock]

Hi Richard, good exposure on the blacks of the bird. The consequence seems to have been the harsh brightness of the rocks on either side. In my case I would start by trying to bring down their brightness, probably in the original raw. I'd then try to clone/patch out the green pieces of the background and the yellow flower (nice as it otherwise is). Finally, it might be possible to improve the messiness of the background by masking out the bird and front rocks, then running about a 20 pixel gaussian blur on the background alone.

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi Geoff
good suggestions will give it a try

OK reposted edited image

thank you

Rich