Theme: Backlit Reddish

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Greetings. Perhaps, my favorite bird. Love their hunting behavior.



I've only had a few shots at these beauties... this one is from a few years ago (processed today) at Bolsa Chica in Southern California.

Nik Silver Efex manages the shadow contrast in this shot taken as the sun set on the wrong side using the B&W conversion for contrast and blend back the color with luminance blend. Topaz InFocus for detail.
Boosted color with Topaz Adjust. Smart sharpening.

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Michael, it's one of my favorite birds also I love the drama presented here - something ominous and foreboding about the pose which your processing enhanced. I also like the strong horizontal lines in the water.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Michael, I was wondering where you found that guy in your area and then I read your text. It seems that Bolsa Chica is the place to find these cool birds in our part of the world. I got some shots of one there last year. I like your processing and the fact that you were able to recover some detail with In Focus. I've never had any luck with that filter but you put it to good use. Love the intensity of the hunting reddish!

[Anita Bower]

A great looking bird. Love those feathers and the intense look. (Can you tell I'm not a birder?) I like how the bird stands out from the light bg. The bit of detail in the bg is enough to let us know it is water without overwhelming the bird. I like that there is detail in the shadow--a nice touch. I thought the eye might be made more prominent, so I used Contrast/Brightness. I also cropped a bit. I assume you want the bird to be rather dark, which works very well. For a different look it could be lightened up using Contrast/Brightness. (I didn't do this in my version.)

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Cheryl, Kerry, Anita,

Thanks much for your comments. As always, they are much appreciated.

Kerry, Topaz InFocus has become a standard processing step for me... kind of a pre-sharpening step after noise reduction (replacing Topaz Detail). - Generic, Blur Radius 1.0, Suppress Artifacts 0.2 (this last may need to be upped as sometimes there is an issue around contrasty bright highlights) usually does the trick.

Anita, Thanks for reposting. I like the eye pop (I would perhaps not go quite that far), but prefer the OP crop.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Paul Lagasi]

Michael, these egrets are my favorites also, they seem to change their look and color at will. I like your image, would have really liked a slight head turn further right but the upraised head feathers and mane more than make up the difference. Nice work

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I agree with more of a head turn, and lightening of the eye. But a pretty stunning image nonetheless.