Sanderling

[Peter Farrell]

Taken this morning along the York river in Yorktown, VA. Sony A700, 70-400G @400mm, f8, 1/1000, iso400, ec-0.7, HH laying on the sand. Cleaned up a bright spot in the water and some trash on the beach, reduced brightness and contrast on the water, levels, curves, usm on bird.

[Brendan Dozier]

That is very nice! Beautiful bird, great low angle. comp and detail, sharpness. Were you lying down on the gound for this shot! The whites look really good. Bright spot on cheek may need just a tad tone down. Looks real good.

[Julie Kenward]

Very nice, Peter! I had to really look to see if there was anything at all I didn't love about this one. Only thing I'd suggest is checking the whites/brightness on the cheek area of the bird. That and one little spot directly to the right are both giving me a loss of detail. If you have the RAW file, open it up and take a look.

I love everything else about this...cute pose, nice HA, the water is beautiful and shows movement with the bubbles at the edge. Very nice comp and crop!

[Peter Farrell]

Thanks, Brendan and Julie. You are correct Those areas had to be recovered in ACR. I tried numerous things and the only thing that helped was burning at 15%. I tried an adjustment layer, multiply @ 50% and it did not do much. Any other suggestions? Remember I only have PS Elements 8 for PP.
Thanks,
Peter

[Julie Kenward]

Peter, there's something we call "brush painting" here in ETL that comes in handy when nothing else works. First, though, try changing the blend mode to Linear Burn - that one tones down the whites more than any other blend mode and then mask back in everything but the overheated pixels.

If that doesn't work...grab the eye dropper tool and click a 3x3 or 5x5 sample size of the lighter gray area that's right next to the burned pixels. Now set the brush to 20% opacity and paint that color just over the affected area. (Make sure you're at 100% so you only go over the parts you have to.) If that doesn't work, either increase the opacity or try a second pass at 20%.

The reason you don't want to go over too many pixels is because it does alter the detail somewhat so keep it light, and clone over them if you need to to get that feather detail back in if nothing else works.

Let me know how you do!

[Peter Farrell]

Julie,
I do use brush painting a lot, however I never have combined it with a blend mode in an adjustment layer.
For this version I sampled the gray 3x3 and brushed the hot pixels at 20%. I then used a linear burn blend mode at 50%. I felt it still needed more so I cloned at 50% some feather detail and used the healing brush around the edges. I like the way it came it. Just don't zoom in too close:)
Thank you for your advice, it's very helpful.
Peter

[Julie Kenward]

Peter, nicely done! I'm not sure anyone would be able to tell if they hadn't seen the original. :)

[Brendan Dozier]

Looks good! and thanks Julie, that was extremely helpful info for me too.