Robin

I'm not sure if this is OOTB or not. Let me know if it isn't. This Robin was chirping up a storm as i passed him by. He would not come out from behind the leaves but did poke his head out enough for me to get this shot. I cloned out some dark and light areas of the Bg and then used a heavy surface blur and cleaned up the edge along the neck. For the bird there was a levels adjustment, contrast boost and sharpening.
Sony A700, 70-400G @ 400mm, f5.6, 1/250, iso 1600, HH

Hi, Peter - I like your concept here.
The colors and pose are very nice.
The bird seems quite soft (large crop?) and the masking on the lower edge of the bird is too sharp and radical, and doesn't blend in to the other greens.
The leaves that you masked out might not be so bad... care to post the original and see what we all suggest?

Cheers -

Sandy

Peter, This is perfect for OOTB! Great idea to eliminate some of the BG distractions. Sandy makes some good points. I tried to sharpen the bird and blend the bottom part of the bird w/ the BG and it seemed to help.:)

Thanks for commenting Sandy and Denise.
Sandy, as requested here is the original, no edit except resizing. It was kind of a grab shot. I probably did too large a crop.

Peter

Peter, Thanks for sharing the original. I like the way you were able to extract the Robin. :)

Peter, I love the colors. Maybe just softening the edges of the leaves as they intersect with the robin's breast:)

Agree with softening of the leaves Peter. Maybe a little NR on the bird, but I like the idea here.