Breeding Intermediate Egret (Ardea intermedia)

[Peter Scholer]

Breeding Intermediate Egret one of a pair building a nest.
Near Macleay NSW Australia.

D500, 600mm f4 VR, Tripod
Shutter 2500, f8, Auto ISO 320, exp -1
3.05pm -12/11/2018

Photoshop crop, exp, whites, darken background which was already dark, clone out unwanted pieces, noise reduction and sharpen.

Thanks for looking Peter

[Jonathan Ashton]

Spectacular image of the bird beautiful exposure and details. The branches are nicely presented. I like the dark background but there is a lot of posterisation there.

[Peter Scholer]

Thanks Jonathan good point, now that its dark I can see it. I was not aware of it in the daylight!

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderful pose. And a good EXP. As I am not sure of the sharpness of the face and eyes you might try to selectively sharpen that area with a Contrast Mask (aka, Local Enhanced Contrast). Learn the details and tons more in the BAA Current Workflow E-guide (aka Digital Basics II) here.

artie

[Jonathan Ashton]

[QUOTE=Peter Scholer;1201330]Thanks Jonathan good point, now that its dark I can see it. I was not aware of it in the daylight![/QUOTE

Peter I am not trying to teach you to suck eggs, but I cannot stress how important it is to have consistent viewing conditions, I too have had problems viewing my images, colour balance and contrast are subjective but they do appear differently in differing lighting conditions.
I have now resorted to having the blind closed on my study window and I have a daylight balanced electric light with a clear shade on it to try to regulate lighting conditions. Consistency is key.

[Jack Backs]

Nice pose, big fan of blackdrops.

[Isaac Grant]

fun image. I like these kids of images. I agree with Artie that the head seems a touch soft. Also, I would reduce the blues in the bird a bit.

[Peter Scholer]

Thanks everyone!
More work on background to decrease posterization. This time with the shutters and door closed. Introduced a black layer and painted it in were needed.
Contrast enhancement to face and less global blue.
Please feel free to comment
Peter

[John Mack]

The white bird looks great against that black background. The pose is very nice. The repost looks much better.

[Arthur Morris]

Peter, The face on the repost looks way better. As my monitor is fractionally dark the rest looks the same to me.

with love, arite

[Jonathan Ashton]

Beautiful, mount it, frame, it hang it!!!!

[Daniel Cadieux]

I'm glad you posted it larger! Excellent overall. My only wish is for the far wing to be open a bit more but that is certainly not a deal breaker. Lots of visual impact, well done!