After tropical Storms... A snowy field...

[David Roach]

EOS R6 RF 100-500 RF1.4xtc @700 f10 1/5400 ISO 6400 slight crop from vertical frame

Was working on a mature blue in the flooded field after two tropical storms passed this evening and saw a sudden flash of white. Thought it was an immature blue till I looked through view finder. A snowy was foraging in the same field.

[Brian Sump]

Like this frame David.

I can see why you chose this comp, leaving the angled blade of grass on the left. Nice choice. I could see a version cropped right where it intersects the vertical blades too. Some may prefer for you to have removed the dark strip at top but I kinda like it for a little color variation.

I think you handled the shadows nicely. I presume you used DN here? I might suggest brushing a little texture back in the whites as they appear just a little smooth. May also take a shot at reducing the sat or dodging the two darker blades of grass just in front of the face.

Any cloning?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Looks very good to me - very natural, I like the pose and the surrounding grasses. Plumage detail is good, maybe you could get a little more but overall I really like this image.

[David Roach]

Like this frame David.

I can see why you chose this comp, leaving the angled blade of grass on the left. Nice choice. I could see a version cropped right where it intersects the vertical blades too. Some may prefer for you to have removed the dark strip at top but I kinda like it for a little color variation.

I think you handled the shadows nicely. I presume you used DN here? I might suggest brushing a little texture back in the whites as they appear just a little smooth. May also take a shot at reducing the sat or dodging the two darker blades of grass just in front of the face.

Any cloning?

Hi Brian, really appreciate the valuable feedback. No cloning on this one and NR was done with DPP settings only (Professor Steve in my head). I find as long as you meticulously expose to the right this rig handles noise really well. It was only a small crop but you are spot on with your description of my thinking on the grasses and inclusion of the dark area on top. And yes, there is more detail to be had as I can see it in the higher resolution version. Thanks again for your truly valued inputs.

[Arthur Morris]

Nicely done as noted above. What jumped out to me was that the top of the head looked very bright (in part, because the sun was from our left). The WHITEs there maxxed out qt 230 (without any visible detail in the JPEG). I selected the top of the head and ran Color EFEX Pro Detail Extractor on that layer. While in PS, I realized that I did not like the darker brown of the strip on our left so I grabbed the lighter strip from the right, flopped it, and moved it into place. I refined with with a Layer Mask ...

with love, artie

[John Mack]

Framing is bang on as is the pose. Nice detail on the bird as well.