In LR, added some Exposure, just a touch of Contrast, small amounts of Vibrance and Saturation. Boosted Red Hue.
In PS, cloned out a small bird in upper right, cropped pic.
I'm wondering about the crop (among other things). I tried a tighter crop that lost about half of the reflection, but not sure if the pic was better. So I left it here.
Hi, here are my .02 - reflection is great, do not crop it (in fact I would add a little more of the surrounding); colours look a little red/magenta-ish to me, did you try the colour correction in LR?; burn in highlights at top; work locally on the head to make it stand out from the background a little more if possible (I would start with dodging it a little and burning in the bg around it, but doing so inconspicuously may not be so easy.) Lovely shot, thanks for sharing. Ihtisham
Hi AP, I agree with Ihtisham on the crop. I think cutting off the reflection detracts from the image. I will also rotate the image CW to make sure that it is parallel.
Regarding composition itself, I feel like this is a very busy picture and I think the water ripple is a big factor in making that the case. I don't know if you have thought about this at the scene, but if you are not opposed to making a non-"avian" style picture... something more along the line of a fine art picture, I think you can make a really nice picture by just showing the reflection. To illustrate, I took the liberty to do the following edits: Crop and canvas rotation, added some more brightness, and cool down the white balance a little bit. I hope I am not offending you by offering this suggestion, but I have played with this recently and that was the first thought that came to mind when I saw your picture.
Gee, y ou've got some good advice from Adhika and Ihtisham. The reflection is beautiful, so I would leave it also. The BG oranges are a bit overpowering for me. Taming the whites in the water could be problematic but I think it would be good for the image. I believe there is a catchlight but I think you could lighten the whole eye just a bit. Adhika's reflection image is something to think about.
Great points made above! I love spoonbills and you got a good pose, but with a very busy BG that distracts from the bird.
Rotate it until the eye in the bird and reflection align vertically. You don't want to increase contrast in an image like this where the bird will be overpowered. After processing with a lower-contrast BG, I would evaluate whether there is a need to further reduce the oranges in the BG. I would definitely clone out the brighter areas in the reeds near the top. You might need to double-process -- use the bird from a higher contrast conversion and in PS layer that over the lower-contrast one and mask out the BG on the top layer.
I agree on not cropping the reflection, and even leaving more room for it if you have it without distractions at the bottom edge.
Adhika has a cool take on it, too. There are often images within images and if nothing else, finding them is a great exercise in seeing the best realistic composition. If I had been shooting this and had my wits about me (not something I can count on) I would have zoomed in and shot a few of the reflection if the bird stayed still enough.
Were you able to work this guy as he moved and get different BGs?
Everyone: Thanks for the C&C, will work on the photo and see what I can come up with in terms of edits suggested .....
Diane: This was a difficult shot (or series of shots). First, I'm above the bird (shooting from in my car) shooting down into a sort-of mangrove valley. This made catching any sunlight very difficult -- made for nice soft light, but that's why there is little-to-no catchlight in the eye. I only had small windows between mangrove bushes to get clean shots. Then the bird is moving forward, sweeping it's bill back an forth. I got about 20 pics, but the others suffered from (a) shadows/lighting issues or (b) bird-pose issues or (c) background-through-bird issues, or combinations of these. Ah well ...........
About your thoughts on images-within-images ....... I have this one "lemon" photo of a group of black skimmers. I played around with it, cropping heavily, and have come up with something that, while not "realistic", is .................... catching? Arty? Would there be any interest in my posting it for the folks here to look at and possibly take their shot at re-composing? I'd call the post "Making Lemonaide from Lemons" .......
AP, I would love to see the skimmers. I had a chance to spot these skimmers in Georgia last week. These birds are absolutely beautiful. BUT, the group I saw was sooo skittish. I tried getting closer but they flew away before I made anything that I would consider posting. But yeah, talking about making lemonade out of the lemons... I hear you. I just post something along that line in the other forum yesterday. Maybe we should do a thread on that here and see what people can come up with! Haha
I rotated photo clock-wise, dropped reds some (Hue), dropped Contrast, worked on background making it darker and maybe a bit blurrier (first time using those tools in PS!!), toned down some individual bright spots (roots), tried to brighten head, but did not get the eye cvatchlight as I don't know how to do that just yet (will have to research).
Hopefully better? I don't know, maybe too dark now ........
I messed up. Went to a new virtual copy and started over from scratch. I think I forgot to adjust Exposure or White Balance to get the picture brighter. D'Oh!!
I'll give it another go in a day or so (work stuff getting in the way of fun) ............
Roseate Spoonbill
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