The Gathering

[Norm Dulak]

D7000 w/Tamron 150-600mm @ 400mm
ISO equivalent 800; f/9.0, 1/3,200 sec; MM -1.0
Standard CS6 adjustments; slight crop off the left side; cloned out a spoonbill between the wood storks, the head and neck of which were obscured by a wing of the stork on the right

Not much was happening when this image was captured at the J.N. "Ding" Darling NWR on Sanibel Island, Florida. It was early morning, and some of the birds had yet to awaken. Others were simply preening. Still, I was intrigued by the beautiful colors, not only of the roseate spoonbills. In addition, there was a high wall of green vegetation close behind the birds, that cast a rich green reflection upon the water. And I liked the reflections of the birds, even though they were somewhat disrupted by ripples in the water.

Your comments and suggestions are as always welcome.

Norm

[Bob Smith]

A dandy image Norm. The storks make me think of deacons sternly overlooking their flock on a Sunday morning outside the church.

[Diane Miller]

A great grouping! The darks in the BG compete with the birds, for me. I wonder how practical it would be to lower contrast on the BG without changing it on the birds.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks Bob and Diane.

For Diane, I appreciate your suggestion but fear that I don't know my way around Photoshop as well as you do. But I took a shot at it, which I've posted here.

My approach was to duplicate the bkg layer, and then to select a black region based on color range. Using the brightness/contrast tool, I then attempted to reduce dark region contrast on the entire layer. To restore the blacks in the storks, I created a layer mask and brushed away the adjustment on the storks.

Now, Diane, please tell me how I should have done it. And please show me the result.

Norm

[Diane Miller]

I think this version is much more pleasing -- but it's what you think that counts! Your method sounds good -- there are many ways to do everything in PS. Another way to select darks is by using luminosity masks (Google Tony Kuiper) but you would want the third order dark-dark-darks, at least.

But I'll always go back to raw to correct significant tonal issues, especially ones such as too high contrast. You can increase contrast in PS but decreasing it is very limited. You would maybe need to do separate conversions for the BG and birds, and mask. But you have to be careful not to get a cut and paste look. First, I'd want to see if the Shadows and Highlights sliders in LR/ACR would pull down the darks in the BG and still leave the birds dark enough -- balanced of course with the other sliders. Don't use the Auto setting for the General tab -- it's almost always too strong.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks again, Diane. You've offered many good suggestions, that I will explore.