Swallow-tailed gull

[David Policansky]

I fell in love with these birds in the Galapagos, along with red-billed tropicbirds. These are hard, though, because of their dark heads, red eye-rings, and beautiful white feathers. In addition, getting the bird sharp instead of the BG is a challenge. Canon 7DII, Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II. ISO 400, 1/5000, f/6.3 (manual exposure).

[John Mack]

Gorgeous gull here. Love the pose and that dark blue background. Good detail on the bird. Well done.

[Debapratim Saha]

Nice top view and pose,nice flight shot.

[Isaac Grant]

Nice top side view of these fantastic gulls. I think the image is a bit dark and the blue is over saturated.

[David Policansky]

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.)

[Isaac Grant]

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

[David Policansky]

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!!

[Isaac Grant]

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.

[gail bisson]

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

[David Policansky]

Thanks, Gail Bisson. Do you and Isaac Grant like this version better?

[annmpacheco]

What happened, ohhh dear! Looks like someone used bleach in a colored load... nooo to this version

[David Policansky]

Thank you for making me laugh out loud, Ann Pacheco! Post-processing is certainly not my strong suit.

[Isaac Grant]

I imported your picture into Photoshop. I did a crude selection on the bird and then saved the selection. I then inversed the selection so am working just on the water. I upped the exposure .75. Then went into hue/saturation and lowered the blue channel -15. Then I inveresed the selection again (so working on the bird) and ran a detail extractor/tonal contrast layer on the bird at 10% opacity. Then I flattened the image and put the bird on its own layer. Moved the opacity to 10% and dodge the gray areas on the back a few times. Flattened the image again. Ran some Noise Reduction on the background and the bird and sharpened the bird a little as well to offset the noise reduction. Keep in mind that it is very difficult to work on such tiny files. Note that you can post images up to 1920 x 1920 but for a vertical like this you typically don't want to go more than 1200 high. If working on the RAW I would desaturate the water even more and also up the exposure even more as well. But on this tiny file the quality really started to break up so I left it the way I have it in this repost. Please also note that the whites in my version got a touch gray but that is easy to fix/counteract when working with the full res file.

[David Policansky]

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.