Wattle bird & flower #2

[Don Railton]

Hi Guys

I posted a shot of last Sunday of this tree and the birds feeding in it. I went back to the same group of trees today with the aim to get a cleaner shot and nicer background compared to last weekends effort. The same frantic feeding and bullying was going on, however the sky was overcast so I had to settle for a green background instead of the blue of last week... All C & C's gratefully recieved...

DON

Canon 1DMK4 with 500F4
1/500 sec @ F5.6
ISO 400
Monopod

[annmpacheco]

beautiful capture of this lovely bird. I noticed the yellow underbelly and the distinctive "wattles!" Great pose and wonderful detail around its head.The red seems too bright and for me, and it competes with the bird. If you could tone down the reds especially in the back and right side of the bird. Good for you to go back and get this shot. Are they noisy?

[Jeff Cashdollar]

I love the "day in the life" shots and this is a good one. Love the clean eye and sweet head angle. The reds are alright with me, did you saturate the image any. No big deal, I tend to bump up the sat dial from time to time. Either way, the color balance is fine. You could desat (Hue/Saturation) the reds a tad (-5,..9) and repost, I tend to do this with Cardinals. A cleaner background would make the image stronger. Techs look solid - thanks for sharing - love the day to day shots!

[John Chardine]

Very exotic bird Don, and great to see another image of one. I like the habitat, pose and head angle. I checked the reds and in a few areas the red channel is running 100% but the areas aren't large. The reds could be toned down a bit. Have a look at these BPN threads for advice:

http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/29869
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/29761

As a honeyeater, am I right in assuming they are feeding on nectar from these flowers?

[Don Railton]

Hi John
I have briefly read some of the attached links you provided and you seem to have put your finger right on the problem I am having with processing these files. They are raw images and when importing with ACR the red is saturated. When I try and correct this at import with the recovery slider then everything else is under exposed. I cannot seem to find a happy medium. I will read the links fully and hopefully understand how to fix things. These birds are feeding in the nectar in these flowers, lots of my lesser images show a tongue protruding.


Jeff, I did not saturate the image at all, the colours of the bird are pretty much as you see them although I do not have the gear to calibrate my monitor and I feel it maybe that what appears 'normal' on this monitor is a little hot on others... A colour calibrator is just something else I need to buy...

Ann, these birds are very noisy and make a loud 'Chee Cheek' noise on a regular basis. I am not sure what their correct name is but this group of trees is a busy little avian airport/restaurant.

DON

[Kerry Perkins]

Don, this is another nice capture of this interesting bird. Good job of showing the field markings so well. It is not at all difficult to tone down the reds in the image, but the recovery slider is not the way to go. That is a global adjustment when what you want is an adjustment that is confined to the red channel. There are several ways to do this in PS, possibly the easiest is to use hue/saturation. Select the red component in the drop-down menu and lower the saturation. You can also use the channel mixer, levels, curves, or even other methods. I would suggest trying the different adjustments and determining what works best for this image. I believe that there are no "best methods" for doing things, as each image is slightly unique in some way and the different techniques work differently on each image. Also, it is not necessary for a color channel to be "blown" for it to dominate the image. It's all relative...

[Don Railton]

Thank you for your input kerry. With help from you and John I think I now have a handle on how to correct a problem I had not previously identified... I did spend some time last night reading through the links provided by John and then playing in PS on a third image I have of this bird which I am considering posting at a later date. I will post once I have explored all options provided in correcting the red saturation in these flowers.

Thanks all for your help.

DON.