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Thread: White-breasted Nuthatch

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    Default White-breasted Nuthatch

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    This was taken last month at Ojibway Nature Center in Windsor. I set this piece of wood on top of the feeding platform and about an hour later got the image I was hoping for. I hope you enjoy it.

    Nikon D500
    Sigma 150-600 @500mm
    f6.3
    1/250s
    ISO 1250
    Fill Flash
    Tripod

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    Pretty image. I like the pose, the crop and the perch. But the processing is off and I can tell in a split second that this is a flashed shot that needs some extra attention. Nothing wrong with using flash, but you jeed to make the shot look natural. Processing flashed images is an entirely different beast than regular images. The cool light of the flash has caused the whites of your bird to be blue which needs to be corrected. In addition, the colors are all a bit washed out and thin which is also perfectly normal for flashed shots. You need to add depth back to these shots or they kind of look like they have a film over them. You also need to warm up the bird so it looks more appropriate for the background it is against. Again flashed birds will look artificially cool because of the cool light from the flash. For the repost I did the following.

    Made a quick selection (not perfect) of the whites of the bird and lowered the saturation of the blue channel by -50. Then I inverted the selection and used the black point dropper in curves set to the blackest blacks at the top of the birds head. Then I lowered the opacity of that layer to 80% cause it felt about right on my screen. I then added a few points of black to the neutrals in selective color. Then I selected the bird and the perch and used the Photo Filter (warming filter 85) at 8% to warm the bird up a bit. Ran Arites 25/25 detail extractor/tonal contrast on the bird and perch, reduced the yellows on the perch and background -10, rand some NR on background because of noise introduced by my adjustments and then slightly sharpened the bird in smart sharpen at 40 and .3. Repost is on the bottom. Usual disclaimers that these adjustments are best done on the TIFF. This is done to show what happens when you adjust the black point and bring more depth back to flashed shots. Let me know if you have any questions.
    Last edited by Isaac Grant; 11-28-2018 at 09:03 PM.

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    Thanks Isaac I like the repost and the information on your processing. I will try your suggestions on the TIFF file tonight.

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    Very Nice one. I like the grass and eyes.. Seems so natural though using Setup (Thanks for Mentioning the same).

    Agree repost by Isaac is a little better.

    TFS

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    Last repost works for me, nice closeup, Jim.
    Dan Kearl

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    Hi Jim,
    You have some stunning birds in Canada! I like this bird and how you composed the shot. Good HA, colours and detail. I do like Isaac's edit.

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    Excellent image and great re-work by Isaac. For me, there is a bitt too much room above.

    a

    ps: thanks Isaac for noting which one is the repost :)
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    See I don’t always forget everything

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    Hi Jim, love the image. I remember Nuthatches from when I live in New Hampshire, one of my favorite birds to come to our feeders. I like Isaac think there is much more you can tweak out of the image so I had a go at the JPG. The original might even reveal more. Thank you for sharing, hoping you do not mind my work with your image.
    Last edited by Joseph Przybyla; 11-30-2018 at 11:39 AM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    See I don’t always forget everything
    Yes, but you kept us in suspense almost till the end :)

    a
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    Hey Joe, not sure how your repost looks on your screen but on mine the processing is off. It looks pretty badly over sharpened and coarse and noisy. It also still suffers from the same thin colors and blue tones to the whites.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    Hey Joe, not sure how your repost looks on your screen but on mine the processing is off. It looks pretty badly over sharpened and coarse and noisy. It also still suffers from the same thin colors and blue tones to the whites.
    Hi Isaac, the image looks fine on my profiled Eizo display, could back off the sharpening a tad but then much of the fine detail is lost. Regarding the whites I checked the RGB values in several areas before posting and after reading your post. The red and green are slightly higher than the blue. Above the eye 87.6, 88.2, 83.0 (223, 224.9, 211.7), under the chin on the breast 81.8, 82.6, 80.2 (208.6, 210.6, 204.5), brightest whites at the back of the head 85.9, 86.4, 82.7 (219.0, 220.3, 210.9). None of these values are dominant in blue. The only pure white is 255, 255, 255, once away from pure white there are many shades of white depending on the RGB mixture. I could have used the eyedropper for white balance in Lightroom and set any of these areas as pure white (so all the RGB values are exactly the same) but I chose to go with Jim's original image because my display the image looked reasonable. Thanks for commenting.
    .
    Last edited by Joseph Przybyla; 11-30-2018 at 02:00 PM.
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    All I could guess is that there is something very wrong with your monitor then Joe or something happened when you cropped the photo and converted it. The image quality is not just bad, but quite poor compared to the original and my repost. And I would add significantly worse than every photo that I have ever seen you post. Not sure what you are seeing with this one.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    All I could guess is that there is something very wrong with your monitor then Joe or something happened when you cropped the photo and converted it. The image quality is not just bad, but quite poor compared to the original and my repost. And I would add significantly worse than every photo that I have ever seen you post. Not sure what you are seeing with this one.
    Hi Isaac, here is another edit, I lowered the blacks and backed off the sharpening. Working on the JPG so not ideal as you know, and 1:1 just barely enlarges the image. WDYT?
    Joe Przybyla

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    If being honest Joe I think this one is even worse. The colors are thing and the feathers coarse. The whites are still quite blue. The moss is off as well as the dirt tone and color. This goes to illustrate exactly what I meant about processing these images. Flashed images are very difficult to make look natural. Jim I am eager to see what you come up with following my instructions or what other tweaks you may make. I do think I could have pushed the colors and tone in my repost even more. Made the blues of the back a bit deeper and the blacks as well. But just wanted to give an idea of what could be done.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    If being honest Joe I think this one is even worse. The colors are thing and the feathers coarse. The whites are still quite blue. The moss is off as well as the dirt tone and color. This goes to illustrate exactly what I meant about processing these images. Flashed images are very difficult to make look natural. Jim I am eager to see what you come up with following my instructions or what other tweaks you may make. I do think I could have pushed the colors and tone in my repost even more. Made the blues of the back a bit deeper and the blacks as well. But just wanted to give an idea of what could be done.
    Most likely trying to work on a 8 bit jpeg.
    Joe Przybyla

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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    If being honest Joe I think this one is even worse. The colors are thing and the feathers coarse. The whites are still quite blue. The moss is off as well as the dirt tone and color. This goes to illustrate exactly what I meant about processing these images. Flashed images are very difficult to make look natural. Jim I am eager to see what you come up with following my instructions or what other tweaks you may make. I do think I could have pushed the colors and tone in my repost even more. Made the blues of the back a bit deeper and the blacks as well. But just wanted to give an idea of what could be done.
    Isaac I will not get to the image this weekend but will give it a try early next week. I might message you if I get stuck.
    I appreciate everyone's comments and reposts. There is lots of information and lessons to be learned when people do a repost.
    Last edited by Jim Crosswell; 11-30-2018 at 08:05 PM.

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    Hi Jim, great eye level capture here, and nicely posed against a killer smooth BG. Isaac's repost works well.

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