Love among the Avocets

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon 500/4 + 1.4x
1/3200 sec f/7.1 ISO 400

Small crop for composition, sharpening in CS6
NR on BG in Noiseware Pro
Selective highlight adjustment with Nik Viveza

[Joel Eade]

Beautiful moment captured. I like the light and the detail, especially the water drops. I would consider de-noising the BG.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

Ian, a very nice capture. At these relatively low ISO, my guess is that the "noisy" background was introduced in post. A bit of selective blurring would do the trick.

You chose a great frame to share as both eyes are visible, even with all of the commotion.

[Arthur Morris]

Well done with the intimate post-copulatory display captured. With the relatively harsh light from our left the bill shadows are pretty distracting, but the big problem is that face of the bird in front is somewhat in the shade.... That problem can be fixed easily in one of several ways. Let me know if you need help with that.

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, all. I'll give another NR run on the BG. Artie, I'd love your input as to the fix.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW Ian. Do you know how to use Quick Masks? Layer Masks?

[Ian Cassell]

Yes and yes :)

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks ans thanks. Paint a QM of the darker feathers on the of the bird nearest to us. Then put that on its own layer. Then pull the curve (Control M for Curves on a Layer) up a bit. Add a Regular Layer Mask to fine tune what you did by using brushes of varying opacities. Let me know if you still need help. Otherwise am look forward to a repost.

[Bret Goddard]

Just beautiful Ian.