Cory's Shearwater portrait

[shane shacaluga]

Another shot from my recent boat trip. After feeding the shearwaters would gather in one area and sit waiting for digestion i guess. They must have been quite full as let us get close

D800e
300f4 + 1.7x TC
1/4000
f7.1
ISO 500

About a 40% crop from original. Used the curves during ACR raw conversion to bring out the darker feathers in the shadow and then shadows highlights towards end to try and bring out as much detail in the whites of the breast as possible. Removed blue saturation from the subject as there was a blue cast on the whites from the waters reflection

Thanks for viewing

[Grace Scalzo]

I love the colors, your compostion, and the resting pose of the bird. I'm not the best when it comes to making suggestions on post processing, but the breast looks like you burned it and is a bit gray and not too many details. I tend to use a combination of techniques, highlights slider in lightroom, and a highlight adjustment via the NIK tonal contrast plugin, and possibly a bit of detail extractor (again, NIk).

[Dan Brown]

Nice eye contact. The breast looks like it has been cloned or something? You might try doing less adjusting of the white in acr and then in PS, make a layer with blending mode set to Soft Light, then use the brush tool set the black at 20% and paint the breast, going over it a couple times till it tones down. This trick I learned from Doug Brown, I like it!

[shane shacaluga]

Thanks a lot for your comments

Have reworked the image from scratch not reducing the highlights on the ACR conversion but working with a soft light layer to bring out the details

It works a treat for both lights and darks. THANKS!!

Thoughts on the RP?

[Girish Prahalad]

lovely comp, colors & IQ. the repost is better in terms of whites.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Shane,

Very nice capture. The repost is great, and I might try to coax out just a little more detail in the whites (by the neck). Just a little bit more.

The natural gradient in the water helps draw your attention up to the main subject, and I think that's one of the best features of this image.

I know that the two spots to the right (our right) of the shearwater aren't dust spots, but I would consider cloning them out.

Miguel

[gail bisson]

I agree 100% with Miguel.
Repost is better. Love the color of that water. Another vote for cloning out those 2 spots.
Thanks Dan for that tip on the whites. I will try it in the future,
Gail

[Dan Brown]

The RP looks much better! Part of the neck looks a little soft but that my be what it was! Great bird!

[Dan Brown]

I agree 100% with Miguel.
Repost is better. Love the color of that water. Another vote for cloning out those 2 spots.
Thanks Dan for that tip on the whites. I will try it in the future,
Gail

You are welcome, Gail. This also works great for lightening selectively, just change the brush color to white (hit the X key to toggle to white, in windows at least).