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Gorgeous gull here. Love the pose and that dark blue background. Good detail on the bird. Well done.
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Nice top view and pose,nice flight shot.
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Nice top side view of these fantastic gulls. I think the image is a bit dark and the blue is over saturated.
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Thanks, Isaac Grant. Do you think the gull is too dark, or just the BG? If I make the gull any lighter, I think I'll lose detail in the white feathers. (The blue is as the camera rendered it and as I remember it, no saturation added.)
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I think the bird and the water are both too dark. Sometimes the camera does not render water color accurately. But if it is accurate I think the blue is too overpowering. Here is a shot by Arthur Morris of a Swallow-tailed Gull. Note how the gray is a pale gray with nice clean whites and black blacks. I would use this as a reference.
http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ow-tailed+gull
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Ah, Isaac Grant, don't compare my shots to Artie's! :) But Artie's shot was taken on an overcast day and mine in bright sunshine. As you know, Artie likes bright overcast for bird photography and chooses the timing of his Galapagos trips based on that, at least in part. In any case, I appreciate the feedback, thank you, and I will consider whether and how I can take it into account. We do agree that this is the world's most beautiful gull. I made hundreds of images of them and probably kept close to 100. How lucky you were to see one in Seattle!!
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I was aware of the shooting conditions. 2 methods to brighten image and not touch your whites are as follows. You could select the whites and then inverse your selection. Brighten the rest of the image and the flatten the image. Or you could make a new layer, lower your opacity to maybe 8-10% and then dodge the dark areas only until you have the proper exposure. As for the blues, when you have the water selected just got to hue/saturation and select the blue channel and lower that only. Many other ways to do this but these are 2 easy ways.
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These are my favorite gulls.
This is nice and sharp. And I love the top-side view.You have shown the "swallow" tail beautifully.
Agree that the blues are too saturated and you should desaturate them selectively. I do this the same way Isaac does,
Gail
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What happened, ohhh dear! Looks like someone used bleach in a colored load... nooo to this version
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Thank you for making me laugh out loud, Ann Pacheco! Post-processing is certainly not my strong suit.
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Many thanks, Isaac. I had made an array of versions myself, and the one I chose to post was the one that came closer than the others to matching the tones in Artie's image. What I've learned from this thread--and I thank you all a great deal--is to be more mindful of how reasonably subtle post-processing might improve an image. I spend far more time trying to compose and capture a good image with the best possible exposure than I do processing it afterwards, and maybe I should shift the balance a bit (pun intended). Thank you all again.