American White Pelican (m) with breeding horn...

As most of you have been doing I have been going back in time working on images. This image is from last year at Lake Morton in Lakeland, Florida. Every winter into the spring a pod of American White Pelicans has been at this lake. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

Nikon D500
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, camera supported by a monopod
1/1000 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV 0 ISO 160 WB set with eyedropper, image captured at 290mm
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2020 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped slightly for composition and presentation

P.S. Learn more about Lake Morton in the BAA Middle Florida Photography Site Guide that Artie and I co-authored. It is available at this link The BAA Middle of Florida Site Guide

That's a great look at the breeding bump on the beak! The soft light has rendered tons of detail, but the shot lacks punch as a result. I would have loved to see whiter whites against bluer blues here. The pastel tones do set a really nice mood, if that's your thing!

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Originally Posted by Dorian Anderson

That's a great look at the breeding bump on the beak! The soft light has rendered tons of detail, but the shot lacks punch as a result. I would have loved to see whiter whites against bluer blues here. The pastel tones do set a really nice mood, if that's your thing!

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Hi Dorian, I just posted a edited image. When I saw the thumbnail I thought it looked too dark so I raised the exposure setting the brightest whites about 230. Thank you for viewing and commenting.

Here is a edit with the blues more saturated and darker.

I really like the composition and the curious bill, I guess the horn is lost after the breeding season?
I can't help but feel the colours are a little off, the image looks rather cold to me.

Hi Joe, great portrait with some cracking detail.

Taking the OP and 'double processing' the file. Think there is more you can extract to add some depth in key parts ie the bill. Hard to tell on the laptop, but hope it helps and having a cleaner plumage brings more detail.

Nice one. :cheers:

TFS
Steve

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steve Kaluski

Hi Joe, great portrait with some cracking detail.

Taking the OP and 'double processing' the file. Think there is more you can extract to add some depth in key parts ie the bill. Hard to tell on the laptop, but hope it helps and having a cleaner plumage brings more detail.

Nice one. :cheers:

TFS
Steve

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Thanks Steve, I'll give it a go.

Steve's repost adresses the color balance issue and the whites look great.
A very nice portrait with reprocessing!
Gail

Hi Joseph ... a real hammer :w3:t3

Love it !! Worth a revisit and try to go for perfection IMHO .

Steve´s repost is showing the direction where it could go .... just think I would leave some of the blues in the " shadow areas " . For me too neutral in his RP .... but this is just my view .

TFS Andreas

Great portrait all around. Nice framing. Also like the diaganol line that the bill makes. Love the blue background.

Having to cancel my Florida trip this May could be a blessing in disguise as I may come earlier next year to take advantage of species such as this!! Steve's repost is beautiful, but I'm really digging your OP as well. The eye and skin-folds around it look great.

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, much appreciated.

Here is another edit, to my eyes I think I have the image just about where it looks good to me. I also lowered the contrast to try to recover the soft light of that morning. Because that area of the lake was in filtered light there were shadows which gave me fits with the blues. Anyone viewing let me know what you think...