Could I be any cuter?

I think this little guy just rocks the cuteness chart! He gives Easter chicks a run for their money:S3:
Canon 7D
f4 500mm with 1.4X III convertor
Taken around 6:30 PM September 10, 2011
SS 12500
f 6.3
ISO 400
cropped by 20% from left and above.
I used Artie's sharpening technique for the first time (from Digital Basics) with this picture and it works!! Up until now, I have used LR3 sharpening for jpeg for screen at high. I think I will have to revisit all my other shots...sigh
Comments and critiques are always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

Terrific, Gail. Low angle and eye contact makes it feel like he's in the room with me. Great light and exposure and detail. Sharpening looks good on my screen. And way up there on the cuteness chart.

The cuteness factor sure is off the charts, Gail. Adorable. Overall a great shot, comp, HA, light and low angle.

Super cute, Gail, beautiful detail, color. Love the low angle closeness, pose, eye contact, and the nice texture to the wet sand. I like the blue in BG, but I might try to desaturate some of the blue out of just the the foam part of the water and there is small patch of blue cast on the left side of upper breast. Very nice composition, and I can tell you are really enjoying that 500!

He is so cute and you can tell he knows it by that look in his eye ;-) Fantastic capture, in my opinion you handled the whites perfectly!!! Gorgeous blue in the bg too.

10/10 on the cuteness scale and really well photographed as well. Love the fluffy pose.

Gail, Nice sharpness and pose. I like the composition, I may have tried to put the little one a bit more to the right if it were mine. Very adorable and one of the cutest I've seen.:S3: Love it!!

A real beauty, Gail.

What a puffed up little guy.
The feather detail and DOF is really good.
Maybe just a bit of NR on the background would make this about perfect.

This is so nice!! Excellent sharpness, detail, exposure control, shooting angle, eye contact and CUTE...!! If anything maybe slightly less sharpening.

Very cute indeed I agree with Ofer the image is slightly over sharpen and you really need to selectively sharpen the subject only and mask out the BG as posted the BG is showing noise which is caused by being sharpen. If you will post a non sharpen version I will sharpen it to better illustrate the difference.

very nice image Gail,love every thing about it,but I agree with Don,the BGis noisey,sort that out,and you have one magic image.well done.

Gail

This is indeed a beautiful capture. sharp enough for me. sand bar look quite interesting.
might give a round of NR on the bg Water only ..

Rest you have done it already :S3:

Excellent love the pose and details, well done!

Very, very nice...Great exp and light..>Congrats Gail

Thank you all for your comments. I will do a repost after work and redo the noise in the BG and move bird slightly to the right,
Gail

Top of the cuteness chart for sure! Love the puffy body, that sweet little face, your nice low angle and the great look at those sweet little feets:w3

Here is the repost with USM on the bird only.I have to say that I don't see much difference myself but perhaps it is my amateur eye
Gail

Amazing image, Gail. You've knocked this one out of the park! The repost is killer. I agree with all the positive. This fella is dripping with cuteness :)

with all due respect and agree on the chartbuster this image is.

I've done same which Jim told you about your owl image.

I have separated background cut the sand bar and given high NR on the water.
added bit sharpness to sand portion.

Now as for the bird i think i like the OP processing as it was giving much more detailed look over to the breast white parts.

Hi Mital,
Thanks for your repost. I am not sure I understand the "cut the sandbar". What does that mean?
I did brighten the picture by 5 points in my repost so that is why you are seeing the difference in the whites. Good point,
Gail

hey Gail,

here is the trick,

I have separated background from bird,
say about 1" of bottom is the beach sand copying it to new layer from bg.

Given high NR on bg and added USM to the Sand portion.

:bg3:

great Gail, i love the eye contact the better i see in much time

Hi Gail, The BG looks better on the repost and even better on Mital version which is what I would have done using a layer mask and applied NR to the BG only. You really do not see a difference try opening both of your versions in PS next to each other.

Cute image, and love the pose you captured. Nice and fluffed up.