Scarlet Tanager

[Geoffrey Montagu]

This Scarlet Tanager is a lifer for me, and quite a close encounter. He was as curious of me as I of him and flew in to investigate. For the past several weeks there has been an exceptional influx of spring arrivals here on the east coast of the US. All C&C welcome.

D700, Nikon 500mm+1.4x tc, 1/800, f7.1, ISO 1000, Gitzo Tripod, Wimberley Gimbal Head.

Removed distracting branch in background, desaturated red channel -2, added bit of detail extractor in NIK.




Geoffrey

[Randy Stout]

Geoffrey:

I like the simple composition with the leaves to balance the bird, well scaled perch, head angle.

The red channel still looks a bit oversaturated. I am on my work monitor which isn't reliable, but I am not seeing as much detail in the red as I would expect.

Cheers

Randy

[Joe Senzatimore]

Stunning image.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Geoffrey:

I like the simple composition with the leaves to balance the bird, well scaled perch, head angle.

The red channel still looks a bit oversaturated. I am on my work monitor which isn't reliable, but I am not seeing as much detail in the red as I would expect.

Cheers

Randy

Thanks Randy. I'm seeing quite a bit of detail on my monitor. Let me know if it improves on your home monitor.

Geoffrey

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks Joe.




Geoffrey

[Daniel Cadieux]

Striking bird, one that I have seen often but have not yet been able to properly photograph! Good comp with the leaves offering some nice balance. Pose is OK, glad it lowered its tail a bit. The red is a quite electric to what I am used to seeing from this species...try adding a bit of cyans to the red, and also slightly reducing the magentas, you might find you like the result...

[MohsenVahedipour]

Simple but lovely composition. Very nice IQ, perch & head turn. TFS

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thanks again Randy, and Daniel your suggesting to add a bit of cyan and reducing the magenta has increased the feather detail and knocked down a bit of the electricity. I wish you both could see the Scarlet Tanagers here in Central NJ to witness this bird in person. They are migrating from South America, so by the time they reach further north maybe the electricity subsides a bit…. I know there is an inherent color shift on particular channels in camera models, but I've not seen a distinct redder shift in mine. I added +6 cyan and -6 magenta and it does add a bit more detail, and cut a bit of electricity. Here is the repost.

Thanks again.

[Randy Stout]

Geoffrey:

Better! I did look at the original at home on my recently calibrated high end NEC, and still was seeing the small areas of smoothing of the feather detail that comes from a blow channel. The repost is better.

How much did you pull down the overall exposure in the original? Just for my education, as the reds were in the 230 range or so on the posted image, and I wouldn't have expected detail loss, unless the the exposure was backed off some.

Lovely picture.

Cheers

Randy

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Randy,

Thanks for taking another look. The original exposure has not been lowered. I only added +6 cyan and -6 magenta.



Geoffrey

[Diane Miller]

The reds are definitely without much detail here, but it isn't because the channel is blown. When I open the image in PS I get the warning that the profile does not match my working space. (If anyone doesn't get that warning, check the boxes in Edit > Color Settings.) This image is "Generic RGB." Images should be converted to sRGB as that is generally the best for internet posting with the range of monitors and browsers out there.

But there are processing issues before that which might improve the reds. The reds here are only in the 230 range if the image is opened with the wrong color space -- it should be converted to the working space for the histogram to be accurate. (See the sticky in ETL, "When the Histogram is Wrong.") When I convert it to my working space I see that most of the histogram is in the left half, meaning the image is low contrast, with the brightest reds around 150 . If the raw processing had stretched the tonalities out more there would be more detail in all the tones. The histogram is invaluable when processing. How an image "should look" is the result of a lot of experience, but if the image on the monitor doesn't look good, it's quite possibly the fault of the monitor's calibration.

Daniel's suggestion for tweaking the reds in Selective Color is a good one after the more basic issues are dealt with. I also often add some yellow there.

I did a quick Levels and brightened the tonal range and I see why you have pushed the tones down -- that really does make the red electric. If your raw processing was in ACR or LR, go to the Camera Calibration tab and try a profile different from the default Adobe Standard. It can really mess up reds and yellows, although more for Canon than Nikon, I'm told. Find a profile that tames the reds (gives more detail in them) and then bring them up with the other raw sliders. Avoid Saturation until you have maximized everything else. It can be a sledge hammer.

I'd love to see this gorgeous image with it's potential maximized!

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Thank you Diane for taking the time to contribute these suggestions. Not sure why you're seeing it as a "Generic RGB" unless there's a glitch when I convert to sRGB and save. I'll give a different CC from AS, also and see if it helps the reds.

I'm glad you like the image.

Thank you again,

Geoffrey