male House Finch

Canon 40D
Canon 400mm 5.6L
AV
1/250
ISO 200
F/6
On tripod

Just beautiful Tom !!! Great pose bg and tack sharp. Would consider taking just a little from the bottom and some from the top !!!! Big Congrats !!!

Hey Tom,
You nailed it on exposure. Like the composition, the bright colors and details of your subject; and the green background makes him pop...:cool:

Tom,

Good looking bird and nice pose on the perch. I felt that the image was a bit flat so I did some work on it as follows:

1) Levels adjustment to expand the tonal range and using the mid-tone slider increased the luminance (brightened) of the image.
2) Curves adjustment in PSCS3 using the Linear Contrast preset. This is a mild s-curve adjustment.
3) Selective Color adjustment layer adding 2% black to black and neutral colors and 5% magenta to red color.
4) Selective USM to the head (195/.6/0) reduced opacity to 55%. Masked off the BG at 100% black and the perch and body at 50% gray using a soft brush.

I finished up with a Rule of Thirds crop.

Thanks all for your comments
Robert- I like your crop. As for the rest of your adjustments I'm afraid it is way beyond my PS skills for now. If I use curves I usally go with auto or not at all and the rest of it is still a steep learning curve for now. I'll get there in time. Thanks

Thanks Tom for getting back. That is why I stepped through process - so you would know what I did. As you skills increase with PS this will become second nature for you. You have a good start here and will only get better as you learn more. Keep'em coming and we will help as much as we can.

Excuse the plug but I recommend you pick up Artie's Digital Basics PDF. A lot of what you might need is covered in it and will jump start that learning curve. It is designed to give you the info you need using PS to enhance your images in post-processing and as such doesn't cover topics generically like a PS how-to book.

Thanks Robert