Sandhill crane

From the Bosque del Apache NM

Canon EOS-1D Mark II N
Lens (mm): 600
ISO: 200
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/320
Exp. Comp.: +1.0

Cheers
gary

I like the soft pink color of the BG here Gary. It's a typical Bosque pose, which is a good thing. I think the bird could stand some more sharpening. I would consider moving the bird slightly more left in the frame. Lastly, I would try to deal with the bright horizontal line running behind the bird's head. Thanks for posting!

Gary,

I like the mono-tone look of the image but would like to see the head brighter and the red a bit more saturated.

1) did a levels adjustment to the image and increased the luminance with the mid-tone slider.

2) dodged the head some more - not the most sophisticated method but it worked.

3) selected the red crown and increased its saturation with H/S adjustment to the red channel.

4) selected the BG and with a H/S adjustment desatruated the red and magenta channels to get a high-key look. This last part is to taste and the crane is correctly colored balanced. The BG Hue is nice - this is just an alternate interpretation.

Doug had some other good suggestions that he posted while I was working on this and I was going to mention.

Nice tail spread. I like the repost, but would clean the background a little further.

Nice pose and angle. I agree regarding cleaning the BG and might sharpen the bird a tad more.

Like the repost Robert . Very striking image Gary with wonderful detail and pose and the repost really brings out the red on the head.. I agree about cleaning up the BG . Many thanks for sharing.

After working for the last 16 hours (not on this photo) here's my repost with the great suggestions from everyone.
Many thanks.
Cheers
gary