Young Coop

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk taken at the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve, Newport Beach, CA.

Had a good few minutes with this little guy who was perched on a branch on the edge of the bluffs right near a trail. But no matter what I tried - whistling, chirping, quacking - he wouldn't turn his head towards me even a wee bit!

I cloned out several branches in the upper RC and evened out a blotchy BG. I also slightly desaturated the BG. Not sure whether the OOF branch at the bottom needs to go (I think it does, but it will be a job). I may have over-sharpened this one, please let me know.

Canon 7D & 400mm f/5.6. Manual at f/8, 1/1600 sec, ISO 400

Thanks for looking,

John

very nice bird and I really like the pose and the look. To me it does look over-sharpened and I feel the backgrounds looks a bit too neat - seems like it's been photoshopped. For me, the foreground branch is not a problem

John:

Good looking bird, with good self analysis on image, plus good input from Per-Gunnar. It does look just a bit oversharpened, and a bit over processed in the background. You could post the original in this same thread so we can see what you started with, and perhaps make some suggestions.

cheers

Randy

Here is a version without the additional PP in PS CS5, but with some processing during RAW conversion (in ACR 6.2 - I ran a standard capture sharpening step and did some NR before bringing the image into PS).

I tried to improve the background by removing the dark blotches - may have overdone it!

John

lovely strong image like the first post

John:

I agree with cleaning up the sticks you did, but would do minimal processing on the background. I far prefer the more natural look of the original. I might consider toning down the brown spot above the head, but that is about it.
Just personal taste, but that is how I see it.

Cheers

Randy

I too would have cleaned up the sticks and left the rest of the background pretty much as in the original. I did not find the bird oversharpened. Thanks to the responders above for pointing out the Photoshop work in the background; I might have missed it.

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. The dark blotches seemed to draw my eye away from the bird, which is why I removed them, but I probably went too far and prettied up the BG too much.

Looks like there is a divided opinion on the level of sharpening I used, although as I stated at the outset, I was concerned that I overdid that as well. Sometimes - esp. in the wrong hands - Photoshop can be dangerous!

John