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Steven Grogger
10-23-2010, 11:49 AM
This was taken mid-afternoon in a backyard with many pine and aspen trees. The BKGR may be a little busy but I did like the yellow aspen leaves contrasting with the Grosbeak and also thought the HA was good (?). I used Viveza to do some selective contrasting, Topez for NR after masking the subject, and smart sharpen in PS.

Camera: Canon 50D
F-stop: F/5.6
ISO: 800
Focal length: 400mm
Metering Mode: Evaluative
John Chardine
10-23-2010, 02:19 PM
Hi Stephen- I always like to see these birds. The pose and head angle of the bird are really good, and the perch is the right size for the bird. There are a few things you could do to improve the image. You have the bird facing the short side of the image so I would recrop and remove a lot from the left. The you are faced with the background. I like the OOF yellow leaves but the branches are a bit messy. Some cloning could remove if you felt that was appropriate. Finally, to make the bird stand out I think you need to lighten him, especially the head, and run another round of sharpening. Look forward to a repost!
Steven Grogger
10-23-2010, 04:08 PM
Thank you for the critique. I adjusted the crop to have more background on the side the bird is facing. I removed some of the branches and also lightened the bird up a bit.
John Chardine
10-23-2010, 04:38 PM
You've done a really nice job Stephen. Well done. I think the image still needs a bit more lightening and sharpening. Here's what I'm thinking.
Steven Grogger
10-23-2010, 05:10 PM
That looks great! What method did you use for the sharpening?
John Chardine
10-23-2010, 05:19 PM
I just did a quick Photoshop Smart Sharpen, 100%, 0.6 on the entire image. If a downsampled image is really sharp from scratch usually a 100% at 0.3 to 0.4 works well.
Johan Kruger
10-24-2010, 06:40 AM
nice capture John.
Julie Brown
10-24-2010, 10:59 AM
This is a beautiful bird Steven. I found John's comments and repost to be very instructive. Its amazing how much more detail is evident in the image.
Julie Kenward
10-24-2010, 11:38 AM
Steven, nice pose here and what you and John did certainly took the image up several notches. It's okay to have "environment" in the image but trying to find the best balance of that with how much room the bird takes up in the frame is always tricky. I think your crop is a huge improvement on the original. Well done!