House Sparrow

Hi All,

Finally I was able to complete my move to Utah. I went to Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge to observe birds and also to find if there are opportunities to take some shots.

I was in luck and found this house sparrow to be very curious of me. So I approached him taking one step at a time and finally I was able to get close enough to make this image.

Nikon D500
Sigma 150-600 Sports
ISO 1250, f/7.1, 1/1250 sec

Post Processing:-

Lightroom:- Exposure changes, cropping and sharpening

Exposure: +0.35
Contrast: +0.15
Highlights: +4
Shadows: +13
Whites: +19
Blacks: -28
Clarity: +32
Vibrance: +45
Saturation: +3


Noise reduction by Nik Dfine2
Levels Adjustment by Photoshop elements


Let me know your comments on the same.

Thanks
Krishna

I am glad you made it, Krishna. Welcome to Utah!

This is a very refreshing shot because of the perch. Birds don't always perch on branches so this is a welcome sight. I was gonna suggest a tighter crop from the left and slightly more on the top (putting the bird on the LR quadrant) or a vertical crop but I am not quite sure. Also, I think there is a slight blue/cyan cast on the bird. What if you decrease highlights? I think the neck looks a touch hot so decreasing the highlights might help.

You got a nice alert but relaxed pose. With this perch it was probably a good idea to include it as you did. If you had cropped tighter on the bird, and maybe gone vertical, it might not make sense what it is.

It looks like maybe the bird was in shade and you had to bring out quite a bit of detail. A shaded (underexposed) bird against a bright BG is difficult to work with. The histogram looks good, but I agree with Adhika that the whites do look a bit hot -- just a little. But it may be an illusion. Difficult to give numbers, but it is worth a look to rebalance the sliders. Probably not just one but a combination.

What happens if you go left with Highlights -- it should bring down the BG a little.

Good he let you come close -- maybe you will find some tame birds there. Hope to see more from your new location!

Thank you Adhika Lie and Diane for the feedback

Hi All,

Thank you for the awesome feedback. I think one of my shortcomings are to properly identify blue/cyan cast. I was so happy from a composition point of view that I overlooked color corrections... :-(
I made necessary corrections re-posting the image now.

Krishna, I like the repost very much. Love the BG, and as Adhika mentioned, the perch is great. It has made me think about finding some old farm implements down my paddock. I was also glad you didn't crop down the perch. Removing the cyan cast has made a big improvement. Would you think about burning the beak just a little to make it stand out a bit more from the BG?

I'm sure we have these little sparrows here. When I was a kid at school, I would buy them (with my tuck shop money) off the "bully boys" who would torture them. My Dad built me an aviary for all the sick and injured...and bullied. They would get better and fly away never to be seen again. Now I know they were most likely hawk food, or neighbours' cat food.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Glennie Passier

Krishna, I like the repost very much. Love the BG, and as Adhika mentioned, the perch is great. It has made me think about finding some old farm implements down my paddock. I was also glad you didn't crop down the perch. Removing the cyan cast has made a big improvement. Would you think about burning the beak just a little to make it stand out a bit more from the BG?

I'm sure we have these little sparrows here. When I was a kid at school, I would buy them (with my tuck shop money) off the "bully boys" who would torture them. My Dad built me an aviary for all the sick and injured...and bullied. They would get better and fly away never to be seen again. Now I know they were most likely hawk food, or neighbours' cat food.

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Can you give me more details about burning the beak ?. Not sure what exactly that means. I am still learning PS.

Its awesome to hear that you helped these cute little birds. When I was a child I always looked at these fascinating little birds through my class windows. Now I got a chance to photograph them.. :-)

Thanks
Krishna

Very good correction on the cyan cast -- I completely missed it! Another clue that the bird was in the shade. Not the easiest thing to process.

Krishna, I use "dodge and burn" quite a bit. I'm not sure if Diane would approve?:w3 By burning the beak I would select the icon down the LHS. (From memory, "burn" looks like a fist and "dodge" looks like a magnifying glass.) You can burn highlights, midtones, or shadows and dodge shadows, mid tones and highlights. Use them carefully. They are very easy to over use.

The other way you could make the beak look a bit darker, is to go to at least 100% and select the beak only and do a curves (or levels) adjustment on it.

Krishna, you may like the beak to stay the way it is. Just my take on it.

Thank you for sharing the information. I will give it a try.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Glennie Passier

Krishna, I use "dodge and burn" quite a bit. I'm not sure if Diane would approve?:w3 By burning the beak I would select the icon down the LHS. (From memory, "burn" looks like a fist and "dodge" looks like a magnifying glass.) You can burn highlights, midtones, or shadows and dodge shadows, mid tones and highlights. Use them carefully. They are very easy to over use.

The other way you could make the beak look a bit darker, is to go to at least 100% and select the beak only and do a curves (or levels) adjustment on it.

Krishna, you may like the beak to stay the way it is. Just my take on it.

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The dodge and burn tools are "burning" the changes into a pixel layer and if you want to have an out, you'll want to bloat the file size with a new pixel layer. A masked Curve (or other adjustment) adds almost no increase in file size and is fully editable. But it is a bit more trouble to draw. It also lets you make changes to any adjustment layers below. A new pixel layer, depending where you put it (such as a composite layer) will hide all the layers below.

Thank you for the details Diane.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Diane Miller

The dodge and burn tools are "burning" the changes into a pixel layer and if you want to have an out, you'll want to bloat the file size with a new pixel layer. A masked Curve (or other adjustment) adds almost no increase in file size and is fully editable. But it is a bit more trouble to draw. It also lets you make changes to any adjustment layers below. A new pixel layer, depending where you put it (such as a composite layer) will hide all the layers below.

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