A lovely fellow, good pose, DOF, nicely scaled perch.
The flash looks a bit overdone for my taste. In the repost, I reduced the highlights modestly (-27) in LR, and I think it shows more detail in the perch and feathers.
Just an option. I over shot just a bit to show the effect more clearly.
Norm:
Randy Sir has already said about this excellent image.I like the repost as well as original.
Parakeet pops up very nicely on dark green background. Love the pose,colors and perch.
Beautiful bird, great colours. Randy did say he overshot his repost a bit to show the effect, so having said that something between the two would be nice as to not lose the vibrance in the plumage. A bit better HA, and a looser composition would have bee good too, but all in all a good image of a happy looking subject!
This thread has been a very good learning experience for me. I think the key to addressing most of the comments made here has been Randy's suggestion to reduce the highlights a little. But I agree with Daniel, that it shouldn't be carried too far, to a point where the vibrance of this beautiful bird's plumage is diminished too much.
What I've done in this repost is to use the SH tool of PS CS6 to make a very modest reduction in the highlights, adjusting the highlights slider by 5%. I like the result.
Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions.