Female Purple Finch

[John Chardine]

These female Purple Finches are real bullies around the feeder here at Sackville, NB. The males seem to live in fear of them as well.

I clipped the lower toe of this image so brought in a clone from the same bird taken a second or so before. I used Quickmask techniques. No crop.

40D, 500 mm F4, 1.4 x tc.
capture date: Friday, May 16, 2008 11:14:18 AM
exposure program: Aperture Priority
ISO speed: 400
shutter speed: 1/100
aperture: f5.6
exposure bias: +1
metering: Pattern
light source: Auto
flash: ON - Compulsory flash mode

[Alfred Forns]

Hi John you did well with the PS work !! Do like the bird, pose and bg Excellent eye contact If anything would like a bit more room around the bird !!! Particularly like the parallel pose rendering the entire bird within the dof !! Very appealing image !!!

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Very nice pose and soft light. I agree that it is a bit tight in the frame.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Great pose by the finch, and very good of you of noticing original toe flaw and fixing it - the fix looks seemless! I would lighten the two dark spots touching the head (one behind and one in front). I also see a slight magenta cast.

[John Chardine]

Thanks for comments. I agree Daniel, now you mention it that there seems to be a slight magenta cast. I checked with LAB colour in Ps and diagnosed colour balance. Whites were in the minus for B channel which suggests a blueish cast. For magenta, A channel would be positive and whites here were 0 were they should be. I did a Curves on Channel B and bumped the yellow a bit and bingo, the cast disappeared.