Wow! What a great pose! The talons are awesome, and he has a strong look of intensity. Two things. I think you could bump the darks a bit; that would help give the image more contrast/pop. I also wish we could see a bit
more of the perch. As is, it adds nice context but is distracting, particularly as its not in the same perfect focus as the subject.
Nice pose indeed, and I like that there are faint clouds in the blue BG. A bit of noise on and around the face/head. Also a couple of pale clone marks near the tips of the feathers that need sweeping away. I love that near wing!
Great pose -- love the fanned tail here. Clouds are nice and I like the inclusion of the perch overall. I see some noise / texture around the face that looks a little odd -- did you use one of the Topaz plugins for sharpening? I feel like they sometimes give a color noise type appearance that I'm seeing here, although very likely I'm wrong too! Would love to photograph this bird at some point. TFS
Thank you all. Boy, my eyes must really be going. I don't know how I missed the clone marks around several primaries. I did add a slight bit of canvas on the left, and cloned in some sky there, and must have caught a bit of the wings in the process. I'm only barely seeing a hint of noise that several of you see; not enough that I would have been worried about it. But I'll admit I don't have a Whiz Bang monitor. Alex, I did use Topaz DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, scaling back 25% from their sharpen default setting. Dan, I was afraid the Texas sun was getting bright, so I actually reduced the contrast in the original post. Perhaps that was a mistake. I've done a repost here, going back to the RAW file and starting from scratch. I (hopefully) avoided the clone marks; kept the contrast as shot; added 5% blacks to neutrals except in the darkest spots; used a looser crop to show more of the perch as suggested by Dorian (although, Dorian, I think I find the perch even more distracting here, not less); used more or less the same sharpening routine, but partially erased areas on the sharpening layer where it seemed that Topaz overdid it. Oh, and I also desaturated the sky by 10%. I'd be interested in hearing where you all think the repost is an improvement, where it is not.
Hey Bill, RP looks much better to my eyes -- I don't see any more artifacts, details look better and colors are richer. More post works for me, but I don't mind the composition of the tighter OP either. TFS
Bill, for whatever it's worth I can see why you pulled back contrast when I compare the two. Maybe somewhere in the middle?
Also, I like seeing more of the vertical aspect of the stick but perhaps you could take a bit off the right side and it would help it not stick out so much.
Crested Caracara Landing
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