What a brilliant capture, Joe. Two levels no less. Wonderful feather displays, head turns and sharp as a tack. Looks as if you you were just about eye level with her.
Beautiful shot of the pair, with perfect matching head turns and wing positions. Agree that a slivver more on the right would help if you have it. Maybe just a touch of selective USM on the drake's head?
Ditto all the positives above. I'd like a bit more room behind and lots more in front. Can you post the full frame ORIG? Do you see this often???
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Thanks for the input. I do have room to go to the right. They get in the tree a good bit.I've pruned it several times trying to get it right for these type shots but at the same time I don't want to rape it of every branch. Here is the org crop just converted to jpeg and sized to fit here.
Last edited by Joe Subolefsky; 05-02-2014 at 10:46 PM.
I would crop off the bottom line in the original and just a tad from the right. Color wise I actually like the jpeg over the original, although something in between would be the best. The original looks to green, and this one too magentaish. But the ducks look better color wise in the original. I would desaturate the original under the magenta tab and see how the colors look. Hope that helps a bit.
I retouched the photo (hopefully that isn't a problem) and did what I would do to it. It is work on a jpeg so a RAW would make it even better, but I believe that it works more naturally this way.
Here is what I did
1. I did three different layers of midtone contrast, first to lower the background brightness to help bring the birds out. Then two on the birds to help brighten and add a bit of contrast to them.
2. Selective color: I add +2 to the blacks in the red, neutral and black channel
3. +2 color balance on the red, +1 on the green, and -4 on the yellows
4. Lowered -60 on the magenta tab in saturation
5. Add some saturation
6. Added some vibrance with a vibrance luminosity mask
7. Lastly I burned and dodged the birds and the perches
8. Finally added a bit more sharpness
If I had the RAW I would open the shadows up a bit more, and maybe do a little more processing, but this is just a quick job.
Last edited by Dvir Barkay; 05-03-2014 at 05:32 PM.