Lovely interaction and good focus. I appreciate in a shot like this that what I am going to say is very much easier said than done but when sharpening images such as this the water comes up particularly well, this being especially the case and it tends to draw my eye from the cormorants. I would suggest a separate sharpening layer that could be masked so that you could selectively apply more to the birds than the water.
Great interaction, Geoffrey. (You beat me to the punch, although your frame is better than mine.) The water looks like crystal. I've run into the same issue as Jonathan, that water splashes tend to sharpen well, sometimes oversharpen. In this case, I don't think it's a problem -- the water is a big part of the image IMHO. What I've sometimes done, if I have bird + splash on a sharpening layer, is apply sharpening to suit the bird, and take a low-opacity eraser to slightly dull the sharpening on the water splash to keep it from looking oversharp. In this case I might only take a very slight, small selective sharpening brush to the eye of the RH corm. Glad you got the eye of the LH bird.
Thanks Jonathan, Bill, and Satish for you compliments. Jonathan and Bill, your precise suggestions on how you deal with water splashes is very appreciated. Before I read Bills c&c, I felt the water turbulence in this image added to the ferocity of the birds interaction.
Double-creasted Cormorant
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