Cattle Egret in Flight

[Maureen Allen]

From a pontoon boat on Lake Rousseau, FL in May.

Nikon D300
200-400mm f/4 @ 360mm
ISO 800
f/5.6
1/1600

ACR and CS5, slight crop off left hand side, levels adjustment and minor sharpening

Comments and suggestions appreciated!

[John Chardine]

Well done Maureen! Great wing angle and feeling of action. I like the composition. I wish the head, or the whole body were turned slightly more towards you. I'm viewing the image on my Macbook monitor, which is calibrated but I don't trust it for critical looks. However, I wonder if the image would benefit from a bit of brightening?

[Julie Kenward]

Maureen, I did a few small tweaks to your stunning image...

Opened a levels adjustment layer and moved the white slider to 235 and the midtone slider to 1.11. This brightened up the darker areas a bit more.

I ran a round of noise reduction and then masked out the body of the bird so it was only on the BG.

I sharpened the head and neck area a bit as they are slightly further away from the camera's focal plane than the body is.

I used filter/distort/lens distort and moved the image horizontally so it appears to be more even with the HA. Sometimes it helps - sometimes it doesn't. Your call here.

Beautiful positioning and lovely crop. I especially like the position of the feet and toes here.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Maureen,

Greetings. Wow, what great color and feather detail. I'm less inclined to brighten the top end very much... I do agree with some selective brightening of the midtones, & nr on the bg. A beautiful image.

Jules, I like the overall tone of the repost. The shoulder is a little too hot for my taste & I think the midtone lift with levels decreased the contrast in the wing feathers a bit too much... a selective curves adjustment might have worked better to preserve the contrast.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Julie Kenward]

very true, Michael...I was trying to get out the door to work and hurried through it just to give her an idea of what it would look like.

[Rachel Hollander]

Maureen - I really like the wing position and comp that you've captured here. I agree that the bg needs NR. As to the amount of brightness, I'll leave that to you and the experts.

TFS,
Rachel

[Maureen Allen]

Thank you for the comments. I'll try brightening it up a bit and run some NR on the BG.

And Jules, thanks so much for taking the time to show me what could be done. The filter/distort/lens distort is new to me, so I'll have to take a look at that.

I appreciate the help!

[pat lillich]

incredible photo!!! just beautiful. love the colors and the detail in the wing especially...