Difficult lighting and color cast

If this wasn't the first time I had captured the Bronze Cowbird in it's courting hovering pose, I would scrap it, but since it is, I wanted to try and see if I could make it work. It was taken with a Nikon D800, 500mm f/4-P (old MF lens) @ 1/1000, f/5.6, ISO 800. There was a very strong green/yellow cast to the whole photo due to the late mid-morning sun filtering through the trees/bushes. This is the 5th re-work I've done trying to correct the color and don't know what else to do other than just scrap it. Do you think that's the route I should take or try something else? I originally was shooting some Bobwhite Quail on the ground, when it went up, so in hindsight, I should have been paying more attention to the Cowbird and upped my shutter speed in hopes it would start courting the females in the area. However, that wasn't what happened. Live and learn! Anyway, I played with white balance and the color channels in LR, but nothing was looking too good. I did what I could there, then went to CS6 and Nik's Color Effects Pro and did some "white neutralizer" and then "remove color cast" on layers, painting out most of the bird due to it looking too blue. This is what I have ended up with. As always, your comments and suggestions are MUCH appreciated! Don't worry about hurting my feelings if you think I should scrap it. I wouldn't ask if I really didn't want to hear honest opinions. :S3:

Personally I think you've nailed it Jeannean - not much more you're going to get out of this scene. And it's definitely not throw-away material. If anything I'd say bring back a little bit of yellows to balance out the overwhelming greens. Nice shot! :5

Here's an attempt, I tried to remove the slight green cast on the bird. I also chose to reduce the luminance and a bit of saturation on the BKGD, just a preference for a dark subject. May not be what you're after since it significantly changes the look.

Edit: May have gone too far towards magenta, yet I hardly moved the curve at all. The tone curve in LR is very sensitive.

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Originally Posted by Jon Pugmire

Here's an attempt, I tried to remove the slight green cast on the bird. I also chose to reduce the luminance and a bit of saturation on the BKGD, just a preference for a dark subject. May not be what you're after since it significantly changes the look.

Edit: May have gone too far towards magenta, yet I hardly moved the curve at all. The tone curve in LR is very sensitive.

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Yea the RP does not work for me Jon. I was just after a hint of yellows in the greens. The RP shows some 'ghosting' on the underside of the wings (perhaps due to some added sharpening / lowering of exposure?) which spoils it to some degree. Well, that's what 'Eager to Learn' is about...:t3

I shouldn't have touched the background, I darkened it a bit which does have undesirable effects in the transition areas. I'll take another look at it tonight. Just evaluating the color of the bird itself, is it better or worse?

Will have to wait till I'm on the big screen to have a careful look at the colors here, but I'd say it's a very successful image! Just some color and tonal work needed, possibly separately for the bird and BG.

Keep playing with it and I'll have a look when I can.

I love the image!!! The intense stare while he "hangs" in the air I think really makes the image. I guess one might work a little on the background but I think it is fine as it is. I very much prefer the OP to the RP.

Thanks all for the suggestions and comments. Like I said, I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't apply any vibrance or saturation, so thought maybe that might help with the tonal contrast (applied a little and masked out parts where the shadows started getting clipped). Not sure if it's any better or not. I really appreciate the help with this one!

Here's what I should have originally posted, the only adjustment is to lower the darker tones of green very slightly using LR tone curve. Not knowing the actual bird very well, I don't know if it's more natural or not. Probably better done in PS as it does seem to affect the wing blur in an unexpected way, I just am not familiar enough with making that kind of adjustment in PS (not yet anyway :S3: ).

Jon

Thanks Jon! The greenish cast seems to be gone. :S3: I'll see if I can duplicate what you did.

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Originally Posted by Jeannean Ryman

Thanks Jon! The greenish cast seems to be gone. :S3: I'll see if I can duplicate what you did.

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Here's what my curve ended up looking like. Pulled everything just below the dotted line, it doesn't take much, I had to set quite a few "anchor" points to keep any point of the curve from dropping too far. I've found I can do quite a bit with the individual channels in the tone curve, I rarely utilize it, but found it's especially useful when just changing the Temperature and Tint in the Basic panel doesn't quite get me to where I want.

The last pic looks just fine Jon - just be careful og magentas kreeping in around the face & darker shadows. On the other hand I don't know this bird at all so I don't know if that's reflecting its real colors. Sometimes a slight adjustment to the tones curve can have a huge impact so one has to keep an open mind when using it in order to recognise when you're going too far - or when it's better to leave it alone on a specific pic.

Thanks for the info Jon. The females have more bronze/brown in them, but the males are pretty much black with iridescent blues in sunlight. I gave it another shot and did as Diane suggested and worked on it in CS6 on layers (bird and background on different layers). I took a little different approach this time. Working the green channel on the background and the blacks on the bird. I think it might be a little better?

Good discussion here -- I don't know the bird but it is believable that a black bird picks up a blue cast from the sky, especially if in the shade. The basic temp / tint adjustments should get you very close to what the bird should look like, then deal with the BG separately if necessary.

Here's a basic Color Balance, adding quite a bit of yellow and countering it with some red and magenta (starting with your original) -- but again, I don't know the bird. Just an idea for looking at the colors.... Adjusting one almost always needs to be balanced with the others. Maybe I got too much red in the darkest areas.

Thanks Diane! I really appreciate your input, as well as everyone else. Yes, a bit too much red in the bird. Like I said, it was difficult lighting and the surrounding trees/bushes compounded the opportunity with too much yellow/green cast. The males are somewhat like male Grackles in coloring. They have some iridescent blues in their black feathers when the light hits them. I do think your background is more realistic in that situation though. Balancing both is the dilemma I faced. I will probably re-work it once more trying for that very precarious balance I keep missing. Thank you all! :S3:

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Originally Posted by Jeannean Ryman

<snip>I do think your background is more realistic<snip>

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That's the 'hint of yellow' I was talking about...:w3

I'd touch up the errant reds with a Hue-Sat layer and mask out the eyes. No need to be precise about the mask, since there aren't other reds near them.

good conversation, learned lots.....I think the capture is great, very unusual pose and that makes it!