Red-Shouldered Hawk

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, everyone. I spend most of my time at OOTB but I've been working on improving my base images (filtering does cover a multitude of sins:e3) and I'll be posting here also with that in mind. I took this image this winter at Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park near my house. This was one of a pair who spent the afternoon hanging out close to the boardwalk. I removed a few sticks with content aware in CS5, NR on the bg, selective sharpening.
Comments and suggestions appreciated.

Canon 7D, Canon 100-400L, 1/800 sec., f/5.6, ISO 400.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Cheryl, great job with the capture and what a nice specimen. A couple of things that you might consider - the eye and left side of the face are in shadow but could be brought up in PS, and I would suggest a more aggressive sharpening approach. Your gear is certainly capable of a sharper image and I think the info is there, just needs to be enhanced a bit. A good crop from the top (half of the empty space) makes this image much stronger in the composition department for me. Good job! I hope to see you here more often. :c3:

[Cheryl Slechta]

Kerry, thanks for your suggestions. Here's a repost. I used several different modes of sharpening - Topaz In Focus, usm and Topaz Adjust. Each one left me with plenty of blown highlights. Your thoughts are appreciated.:S3:

[Kerry Perkins]

Cheryl, nicely done on the repost! Looks much better to me. You do have to keep an eye on the highlights when doing sharpening! Good job. I'm off to the field... :S3:

[Gary Thompson]

Hi Cheryl, I really like your Red-shoulder shot. I think if you pull the brightness down a notch you will bring out the hawk better and reduce the highlights in the head area. You also have sharpening artifacts that look like they were the result of masking. I see them mostly around the head area of the bird. Another suggestion might be to increase the the brightness of the catchlight in the eye, it will enhance it. I can post the shot I played with if you are interested. It is very intent on watching something, that I assume will become lunch shortly. I had a pair of these all winter in my yard. They are very intense.

Gary

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi Cheryl, I really like your Red-shoulder shot. I think if you pull the brightness down a notch you will bring out the hawk better and reduce the highlights in the head area. You also have sharpening artifacts that look like they were the result of masking. I see them mostly around the head area of the bird. Another suggestion might be to increase the the brightness of the catchlight in the eye, it will enhance it. I can post the shot I played with if you are interested. It is very intent on watching something, that I assume will become lunch shortly. I had a pair of these all winter in my yard. They are very intense.

Gary


Gary - I'd love to see what you've done.:S3:

[Bill Dix]

Cheryl, repost improves the comp, IMHO. Sharpening helped the bird, but did leave some artifacts, left the perch looking a bit oversharpened on my screen. Did you sharpen the whole image, or just the bird and perch (the latter always being preferable to me).

[Gary Thompson]

OK Cheryl, here you go. It's just a quickie, but I think it brings out the hawk better. I'm not a pro photog or a PP expert, and I do believe that pictures are subjective to the person doing them (after all, you were the one that was there), so if you don't like it, let me know and I will take it down. I'm also new here and to this critiqueing business and have only posted a couple of shots here. I did a small curves adjustment on the shot and then added a touch of contrast and saturation to the hawk. I brought out the eye a bit and highlighted the catchlight just a little more to make the eye stand out better (it may be too much for you, but I think the eye is a very important part of the shot). Noise reduction on the background and sharpen the hawk with USM. I made a small crop off the top because that's the way I liked it (I guess that's what happens when you let someone play with your shots):bg3:. If you separate the subject from the background and only sharpen the subject, you won't leave the artifacts of sharpening in the background. I do spend a little time masking, but it is worth it IMHO. If you don't understand any part of this let me know and I can try to explain how exactly I did it. I started with your original shot. Hope you like it.

Gary


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3336/5727533804_258cf852ba_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/garythompson/5727533804/)

[gail bisson]

Wow Gary. I love what you did! I have just downloaded the CS5 30 day trial so I think you should come to my house and show me how to use it!
Cheryl,
I love the setting and the environment that surrounds the hawk. Agree that the hawk is a bit soft in the original post but way too oversharpened in post #2.
Gail

[Cheryl Slechta]

Gary, sorry it took so long to get back to you - my dog has been deathly ill and I haven't been near a computer. I think he's fine now and your rendition is excellent! I've been using Elements which doesn't have very good curves adjustment and I just upgraded to CS5 so I haven't gotten used to that part of my workflow:S3: I don't ever use it in LR for some reason but I'll start playing around with it. Thanks for your time and effort - I really appreciate it.