White-faced Ibis

Sony A850~Sony 70-400G@400mm~ISO 1250~1/1250sec~F5.6~manual exposure~HH~overcast~1-31-2011~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS5/ Topaz Adjust 4 (small details preset)/ Topaz Clean3
I took a series of this bird, and this one just got too close, and this is the crop I settled on. Open to suggestions. The Topaz treatment, which I used quite often before fractalius (and still use but not for posting), was applied and the history brush to return to the base image with not only the background but the far wing. I'm not real sure about this one. Comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

Bill, I like it a lot. Love the colors and and the details are fantastic as is the oof bg. I like the pose but I would have preferred to see the feet intact with a bit of space below. As the bird is descending, my eyes goes to missing feet rather than the cropped wings.

Thanks Indranil. I clipped the feet, and decided to crop at the ankles. I did post several images of the bird (with no clipping) in avian though. The problem is how to properly frame a bird that is too close to include all of it. regards~Bill

William, I love the BG colors and the sharp details. I am not crazy about the crop and if it were mine I would probably crop tighter. The noise on the near wing and tail seems out of place w/ the rest of the image. I hope to jhave time to see the one in Avian. :S3:

Thanks Denise. I'm not crazy about the crop and the noise problems either. As I've suggested before the base image is very important on how well a particular filter effect works, and this base image was not well matched with the technique. Appreciate your observations as always. regards~Bill

Lovely colors and details, Bill. I like the pose, but I have to agree with Indranil's and Denise's assessments on the crop and noise.