Male Bufflehead

[dankearl]

An extremely challenging duck to get the right exposure on.
Really great little ducks, a BIF of one would be amazing, beyond my skills.
1/1000
f7.1
iso400
600mm (300 w/ 2.8)

DSC_4642nx.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=104957&stc=1&d=1322793625)

[Arthur Morris]

Love, love, love the image. Bummer that the bird was not swimming into the light water..... That said, the WHITEs are presented too bright and the DARKs are presented too dark. Ran a Linear Burn on the bright whites and lightened the head with a Tim Grey Dodge and Burn. Contrast mask on the head after lightening it. Image design is loverly and sharpness is superb.

[Arthur Morris]

ps; The WHITEs would be best handled during conversion by using the Recover slider to bring them under 230.... I wanted to do some Eye Doctor work but not enough pixels....

[dankearl]

Thank you Arthur.
You did bring up a bit of the shadow on the face without bringing up the whites.
The whites did not over register on my LCD and were not overdone in NX2, but they did LOOK too bright.
I burned a tad on the head.
I have spent 2 weeks, since they came back in the area for the winter, trying to get a decent photo. You have to stop down 1 stop at least
no matter what the meter says to not blow out the whites. A very tricky little guy to get right and to get close too, since they are really small and shy.
Thanks for taking the time.

[Ofer Levy]

Hi Dan, good sharpness and detail as well as nice low shooting angle. Artie's repost is an improvement and I have used it to selectively brighten the BG and face a bit more.

[Arthur Morris]

Thank you Arthur.
You did bring up a bit of the shadow on the face without bringing up the whites.
The whites did not over register on my LCD and were not overdone in NX2, but they did LOOK too bright.
I burned a tad on the head.
I have spent 2 weeks, since they came back in the area for the winter, trying to get a decent photo. You have to stop down 1 stop at least
no matter what the meter says to not blow out the whites. A very tricky little guy to get right and to get close too, since they are really small and shy.
Thanks for taking the time.

YAW. See my comments in Pane 3 on saving the WHITEs during conversion and your life will be a lot easier. Also, learning to work in Manual Mode with this species will make your life much easier....

Good job by Ofer.

[Randy Stout]

Dan:

Really nice image of a challenging duck to capture, at least where I live.

I like both the blue and the green BG, but not together with the dividing line through the duck.

I took a second to replace the blue with green. I used the color replacement brush, which is nice as it doesn't change the underlying detail. Yes, the left side is still lighter, but at least the change from the two sides of the image aren't as jarring to my eye.

Just an option for you.

I used Ofer's repost because it was the brightest.

I think you can do a better job than I did working on your raw file.

Cheers

Randy

[Dan Busby]

Beautiful profile of the species Dan. Lots of reposts to consider, each giving a different perspective. Plus a good lesson on controlling those difficult whites. Great post!

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Gorgeous image and I am liking the image getting lighter. I'm gong with Arts repost as I feel the noise got a bit over whelming in the BG as the reposts got lighter. Just beautiful

[Ofer Levy]

.,.. I feel the noise got a bit over whelming in the BG as the reposts got lighter. Just beautiful
I like what Randy has done although personally I never alter colours that much. Cheryl, the noise is a result of working with such a tiny jpeg files. Processing the RAW will not result in such high noise at all IMO.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I like what Randy has done although personally I never alter colours that much. Cheryl, the noise is a result of working with such a tiny jpeg files. Processing the RAW will not result in such high noise at all IMO.

Oh good cause it was gettin a bit loud :)