Theme American Oystercatcher at sunset

[Isaac Grant]

American Oystercatcher by Isaac Grant, on Flickr

I have been a long time lurker on this forum and feel it is about time that I start to contribute. I have learned much from you guys so here is my public thank you. I still have much to learn about post processing and think it is not at all my strong point. As the title suggests this photo was taken a few moments before sunset on 4/18/16 at Breezy Point in Queens, New York.

Birds were feeding as the tide was going out and was on a steep bank. This shot is cropped 25% to try and make it mostly level. Shot while I was lying in the sand and on tripod set to be inches off of the ground. I have the Induro 304l and the Mongoose 3.6 (bought through affiliate links ).

Canon 7d2 with 500mm f4 ii + 1.4x iii, ISO 400, F8. SS 1/1600. Converted in DPP 4, highlights brought down a bit, shadows raised. In PS6 I applied noise reduction to background and sharpened using NIK sharpener Pro output sharpener.

All comments and critiques more than welcome. I should note that I do not know how to make a thumbnail appear on the forum. Any advice would be appreciated.

[Glennie Passier]

Isaac, finally I get to see one of your images. I am pleased you used f8! This is really lovely. Not much I would change. I might consider removing a couple of those little darker spots on the water line. I also wonder if you could raise the exposure just a little?

From what I have read, loading a picture from Flicker may not do the image any justice. Here is what I know. When you go to "Start a new thread" - scroll down the screen until you get to manage attachments. Then its just choosing your file and uploading, taking note of the size and 400kb limit. There maybe other ways, but if I can do this easily, I am sure you will be able to.

Isaac, I can honestly say, although I don't always use f8, I always think of this little voice in my head, courtesy of you, saying f8, f8.

[Isaac Grant]

For your Sigma F8 is a much better option. With the 500 f4 and the 1.4x I do not need to stop down to get really sharp images. I used f8 so that I could have a bit more depth of field as the bird was very close. In DPP I lowered the highlights -3. Without that I was losing some fine feather detail in the whites. In PS there are still some slightly blown out areas as is.

[Bill Dix]

Welcome. Great low POV and lovely light. Good walking pose, and the food item a bonus. The whites look pretty good on my screen, but you might be able to tone down the highlights just a bit more to eke out a little more detail. I could imagine taking a little off the bottom. But I'd be very pleased with this one.

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks for the input Bill. I really appreciate it. I too was confused about the bottom. I kind of like the reflection but at the same time taking a bit off I am sure would be fine. Being that I already gave it a decent crop to level it out cause the bird was walking uphill I was not sure I wanted to take even more off. In all honesty, my screen is not the best. It is next on my list of upgrades. Have recently done my computer, and also bought the 100-400 ii and the 500 ii. Screen will be soon so I may be a bit off in what I am seeing. That perfect setting sun light is my favorite.

[Richard Flack]

Super image Isaac, love the pose and prey item and the light is awesome. I would be tempted to take a bit more off the bottom though. Look forward to seeing more, cheers Rich

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks Richard. Very much appreciated and thanks for the encouragement. Have some others I will get together and post soon.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Hey Isaac, I am glad you are taking the plunge to post images. This looks pretty darn good. Great light, colours, pose. Sharpness looks spot on as posted - this is one area that many have a hard time mastering at first so you are ahead of the curve in that aspect. I love the curled feather. For sure I would remove the two darker spots in front of the oystercatcher (patch, clone, or content aware should all work OK with this). Perhaps a bit of clockwise rotation too. A great start, hope you keep them coming...

To generate a thumbnail I just upload a resized file straight form my PC. When you start a new thread scroll down to "Manage attachments" - you can upload from there.

[Mike Poole]

Gorgeous light and a nice pose to boot. You could possibly squeeze just a little more out of the brightest whites, but this is a very nice frame

Mike

[Isaac Grant]

Thanks Daniel very much. I really appreciate the comments and also very much admire your work. I will work on the things you and others have mentioned. I have a good 100 or so really sharp images of a pair of Oystercatchers that were feeding shortly before sunset. I chose this one because of the curled feather. Was very windy on the beach that night. Have a few others I will work on and post.

[Isaac Grant]

Thank you Mike. Could you please advise me as to what you think the best way to squeeze more out of the whites would be? I was a serial DPP3 user and only ever did basic adjustments to my images. Still learning photoshop and others and welcome the advice. It is one of the reasons I chose this image in particular to post. The whites in direct sun with a dark bird are always a challenge.

[Mike Poole]

Thank you Mike. Could you please advise me as to what you think the best way to squeeze more out of the whites would be? I was a serial DPP3 user and only ever did basic adjustments to my images. Still learning photoshop and others and welcome the advice. It is one of the reasons I chose this image in particular to post. The whites in direct sun with a dark bird are always a challenge.

Isaac,

I'm far from the best at PP around here, and to be honest this doesn't need much, but this place always pushes you to eek out that final detail, which makes it one of the best places to learn this kind of stuff.

There are ways of targeting specific areas of brightness using luminosity masks, for which you need to research a bit (maybe start with Tony Kuyper luminosity masks on youtube) but to keep this simple I just did a curves layer adjustment in PS

once the curves box is open I went to the little 'hand with 2 arrows' icon just below the word 'preset'. I then went onto the image and the curser should now be a little pipette. I put that on the brightest whites just below the shoulder, and holding the mouse down, dragged the pipette downwards. The whites should then go a bit darker.

I didn't want the whole image altering so went command+I (I think it's ctrl+I on a PC) to mask everything, then just brushed over the areas I wanted to target.

Mike

[Isaac Grant]

That is so helpful. Really appreciate the time and the repost. Next up for me is a new monitor for sure. It is vital to do the work on the fine details. I will practice your method on another image. Thanks again. Should I be successful at it I will be sure and give you the credit.