Red-headed Weaver - guess where he gets his name from :)

[Richard Flack]

Shucks, I found getting the exposure correct on this bird a real handful. (Think I may have binned more photos on this guy than any others :)). Anyhow, thought it would be interesting to show the male of this species, since I had posted the female a couple of days back.
Look forward to your comments as always...

Photo details:
ISO 640
Shutter speed 1/800
F stop 5.6
Exposure bias 0





Cropped, sharpened for web, vibrancy

[John Robinson]

Hi Richard . You managed it well indeed. It looks like tricky one.
Well done. Great background too.!- just the way I like 'em !
John

[WillieHall]

nice exposure, like everything about this. I struggle with reds, good job on a beautiful bird

[Arthur Morris]

Tip for the RED strugglers. Go to Selective Color in Photoshop. Go to the RED channel. Add 50-90 points of CYAN to tame the REDs.... No need to cut the RED SAT.

All as detailed in Digital Basics that included many dozens of similar killer tips and techniques.

[WillieHall]

Arthur, can DPP4 do this, I only have Elements 12

[Diane Miller]

Very nice pose, and I also like the BG. What camera?

Artie is talking about in PS. Don't know if Elements has Selective Color. It's a good technique but before that, try working the reds to find max detail in raw conversion, starting by changing the camera Profile to one with less red saturation, if Elements allows that. PS is limited to the tonalities that were glued into an image when it came into PS. The raw file has much more tonal overhead to work with.

Then bring reds up -- usually easier to bring things up than down.

[Richard Flack]

Thanks so much for the comments! Really appreciate it! Diane, I am using a canon 7d MkII and a 400 f2.8 lens. Thanks

[Diane Miller]

I love my 7D2, and that lens sounds great with it. I had thought you said you were using Elements, but looking back I don't see that. Reds can be difficult with the default Adobe Standard camera profile, but easily tamed with Camera Faithful or maybe one of the other ones.

[Richard Flack]

Thanks Diane, funny enough I was referring to getting the exposure right while taking the photographs (and not in photoshop itself, which is what I use). Yah, loving the 7dII and lens combo. Having a lot of fun with it!

[Diane Miller]

Our lives are complicated these days (in a way I love) because we have to get the exposure good in capture and then deal with color and tonal issues when the raw data is converted to an image. I assume, then, you're using Adobe Camera Raw for conversion. It isn't really part of PS, just a companion program, like Bridge. Overblown reds can be an issue (apparently with Canon bodies in particular) even when the histogram is well short of a blown out exposure. Going to the Camera Calibration tab and looking at the various camera profiles, you can often find one with a little more detail in the reds. They will probably appear under-saturated but that can be brought up by tweaking the sliders in the Basic tab (although I rarely use the Saturation or Contrast sliders themselves). Also make sure the Temp and Tint sliders aren't causing an issue with reds.

Then in PS the method artie mentions with Selective Color can do wonders. In addition to adding cyan to the reds, also add a little yellow.

[Arthur Morris]

Arthur, can DPP4 do this, I only have Elements 12

Hi Willie, I do not know. Do let us know if E 12 has a Selective Color adjustment. My guess would be yes....

[Arthur Morris]

ps: the exposure as presented looks fine. The REDs are way to hot and most likely clipped on an RGB histogram (as they should be most times for images like this or for richly colored sunrise or sunset images).

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Diane, funny enough I was referring to getting the exposure right while taking the photographs (and not in photoshop itself, which is what I use). Yah, loving the 7dII and lens combo. Having a lot of fun with it!

Again, the EXP looks fine but the REDs are way hot. Did you try my Selective Color suggestion? It works miracles....

[Satish Ranadive]

Superb image of handsome weaver. Very informative discussion.
TFS.

Regards,
Satish.

[Richard Flack]

Hi Artie, yah, thanks so much (was getting round to thanking you). The tip works brilliantly! Super helpful! Thank you! Appreciate it!