Aanother Acorn Woodpecker

We have a nice tribe of these guys (and gals, presumably). I had put out a perch that was a larger diameter near the base but this one preferred to be out at the end where it was smaller. Attracted to a feeder.

Canon 5D Mk III, 300mm f/2.8 IS + 1.4X III. ISO 800, f/14, 1/160, fill flash set to Manual power for main light. Bird was in open shade, BG trees in early morning sun.

Basic LR tone and color adjustments; cropped from horizontal to approximately square then into PS only to add a little canvas top and bottom and to touch out a bright lichen at the tip of the perch.

Now that I see it here, I need to darken the blacks just a little.

Hi Diane. This is one of my favorite woody species and your techniques look good. Your BG is quite bright and you might consider toning it down just a tad to make the bird stand out.

Nice clean shot of this good looking Woodpecker, Diane.

Stunning woodpecker, it a first never seen these before. I would also consider darkening BG slightly, good work.

Hi Diane, lovely angled pose, not too steep, and I feel you have the blacks spot on - infact the overall exposure looks good. I dont think the BG is too bright, but would come in from the left to create more of a vertical comp.

Interesting image
The exposure on the bird looks nice, the perch is a bit bright to my eye
Pose of the bird appears a bit odd to the eye in the sense that it more looks with the neck in and a bit afraid of something , just the look i got and i can be completely wrong ( what was the bird looking at)
I like the BG in here with light and dark of greens

I like the image. He looks like a cleric. Exposure on the blacks looks ok to me; if you added black you might lose what detail remains in the wings and tail. Perch does look a little bright, but light BG looks ok to me. (Curiously, I've just been working on an image with a black/white/color bird on a bright yellowish BG. I had the same reaction, that I should darken it to make the bird stand out, but when I tried it, the bird looked pasted on. So I think it looks fine as is.) I'd be tempted to take a slivver off the left, and halfway to the bird on the right, and add a little canvas on top to make a vertical of it.

Thanks, guys.

I do agree that some could come off the left. It's basically a vertical subject and I wouldn't mind getting rid of some of the darker area.

I did tone down the BG a little in RAW after the other adjustments. It is verging on bright but I've had the same experience Bill mentions of darkening a BG looking a little phony. I think I should darken the top 1/3 with a gentle gradient coming down to mid-chest. Then I'll try again working on the yellows.

I'll play with the perch, too, and see what I can do. It would be a great candidate for the masking capabilities of Nik's Viveza.

These are rather comical birds and do take on some strange poses and looks. This is actually one of the more relaxed poses. They seem very wary of any other birds and are always on the lookout, even though they're bigger than the others, and about equal to the scrub jays. They're fun to photograph and they do love the local soup kitchen.

Here it is with suggested tweaks -- I think it's improved. Maybe needs a little Curves boost now, though...? Or a slight gradient darkening at the bottom.

I like it. Good work on the repost.

The repost is excellent.
How wonderful that you have these guys in your backyard.
Love the new comp and the blacks and the eye look so much better in the repost.
Gail

nice capture Diane,repost is the one,like the pose and BG.

I agree, the repost is much better. Nice shot with nice details in the blacks. Exposure looks great too. I have been chasing some of these at a local park but cant get them out in the sun. Well done

what a bird to get on your backyard! like the repost. details, comp & & BG are very good.

Magnificent image of beautiful wood pecker.
Love the pose,very colors, details,lights and composition.
Vertical looks superb.

Regards,
Satish.

Nice work, Diane. I like the repost in that it does not look so bright, but the techniques used here has produced a halo around the birds head.
BTW, this is a male Acorn. You probably know this but if not - the females have a black band across the forehead, between the white and red. It is a wedding band!!:2eyes2: That's a trick to remember the female has the band!

Thanks, everyone! And thanks for the information, Dan -- I'm not a birder, just got into them through photography and have a lot to learn. I'd never noticed a difference in the head pattern -- will start looking.

And I hadn't noticed the halo before -- that's a frustration in darkening a BG, even subtly. It over-emphasizes transitions that are in the original capture but didn't show at lower contrast. (Someone hre could state that a little more scientifically.) I've done no sharpening on either post beyond the LR default. I've never sharpened a JPEG after it's created, and rarely sharpen a file for output.

This was just a slight tweak in a Hue-Sat adjustment layer, and those edges will be easy to mask -- thanks for noticing. Lots of good eyes here!

I see I've lost some detail in the beak -- easy to mask it out to reveal a lower layer that has it. (I love layers!)

And BTW, is everyone careful to link to the BG all layers that have pixels or a mask? It's easy to inadvertently move one just a squeak and not notice. An adjustment layer with nothing painted on the mask doesn't matter -- nothing there to move.

Looked at the .psd file and the halo isn't there -- a JPEG artifact, I assume. There is a slight white halo on the top edge of the beak and some diffuse lighter area where the feathers are somewhat fluffed out along the back. That would have been introduced in the LR color/tonal adjustments to the yellows in the BG. Probably better handled with the Temp slider.