Hi John ... a nice and solid portrait of this species .
Framing looks good and the overall color and tones as well , if you like you can get a bit more variation in the colors as it does look almost monochrome . Shame about the long grass in the BG ...
Handsome White-tail buck:)
I gather lighting conditions were poor at the time of shooting, but well worth pushing the gear to its limits, you got such a nice portrait here
Love the proud stance and that handsome rack, good head angle too with both ears visible. Whites a bit bright but I think you can tame them a bit, there's still detail so definitely not blown.
Indeed grass can be a nuisance sometimes, but there are ways and means to deal with vegetation without having to perform drastic moves like cloning, etc. I tried to 'soften' it a bit, see if it works for you.
Colour wise I am not so sure, to me OP is leaning towards pink/magenta and RP a bit on the yellow side. Struggling here because I have no clue what the environment ( or the subject) looks like, just feel that none of the two versions look 'natural' to me.
Took your image in LR and found a 49.7/49.9/50.1 with the white balance selector on a grey area to the left of the subject's eye. Added a bit of vibrance and saturation in PSCC ( subject only) and blurred the BG further to soften the grasses.
Let me know what you think, I hope others will chip in too with suggestions and RP's, really appreciate Jon's and Andreas's input
Gabriela's RP nailed it for me, love the colours and you can see John where you need to be and with a bit more USM the image is there, plus the grasses now work and add context to the scene.