Robin Portrait
A Robin sits on the banks of a lake in the warm morning sun. I wish I could get a slightly lower angle, but that was the lowest I could get. I loved the morning light though.
1DmrkIII, Canon 300/2.8 IS with x1.4TC, F/6.3, ISO 500, manual, 2014, John Heinz Wildlife Refuge
Dvir, the techs look good to me on this one. I might be tempted to give a touch more room on top, but I like this. The last time I was at John Heinz, I didn't wind up with much.
Looks good. Nice and sharp. I like the lighting on the bird against the background. I find the OOF vertical lines that run behind the bird are on the distracting side but this is still a very nice shot.
Nice shot -- I don't mind the angle but wish the bird's head was a bit more toward you, or at least parallel. Nothing you could do about that, though, unless you have a different frame.
One thing you can control is that the BG color (lovely as it is) is distracting as the bright greens jump forward ahead of the subdued colors of the bird. You can fix that in the raw converter (HSL panel if you use ACR/LR) or with Hue-Sat or Selective Color in PS. Greens are usually mostly yellows. I would even consider bending those colors away from green to something approaching tan -- something more of an analogous color to the bird (tan-orange) instead of a complementary color (green-orange).
You could also do a soft quick mask over the face and lighten it with a Curve.
Ok thanks Diane for the advice, here is a newer version.
used selective color to make the greens more redish
and did a midtone contrast on the head.
Going the right direction (for my tastes, of course) but I would have gone a little further. That's purely maker's choice, though. The way I decide whre to go with adjustments is to go too far and then toggle back and forth to see the difference, then readjust to the best values.
I see what you mean, I tend to over do things in processing as well, and then toggle between the original and the final with the layers toggle, and almost always lower a couple things to make it more natural. If you would like you can change the image to show me how you would change the color.Originally Posted by Diane Miller
This is going a little further -- just Hue-Sat for greens and yellows, globally, and a slight burn in the LL corner. Makes the robin stand out a bit more, for me.
Its very nice as well, certainly helps bring him out more, I love the beautiful colors of the background, but this version helps make the Robin the sole object of the viewers eye. Thanks for taking the time to post your version.
Beautiful backgrounds are a curse to good photography!!
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