Bird on a stick

[Sidharth Kodikal]

A bird I've heard a million times, and had only fleeting glimpses of, although it's not rare by any means.

Happy to get it out in the open.
This is a Coppersmith Barbet.

Fruit used as attractant.

Canon R5, 600f4, tripod, hide.
1/2000, f10, ISO 3200


Denoise and color correction in ACR. Crop and smart sharpen in PS.
The feathers on the shoulder and chest are so sharp, they look crunchy in the RAW too :)


All feedback and reposts welcomed.

Thanks!

[Daniel Cadieux]

Cool bird, and the perch is very nice with the wrapping stem. Good background details, colours. Did it provide you with a better head angle (I suspect not)?

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super shot good details, I get the impression the image contains too much Magenta.. Loving those whiskers!.

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Good eye, Jon. Thanks!
Used Selective Color to remove magenta and cyan from neutral and black in bird and perch only.
Hope this is an improvement.
Please feel free to RP.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Looks good!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Sid I did follow your return to BPN with interest ... your struggling with the PP
You posted some stunning stuff since then .... congrats to your nice work , the PP stuff will become better for sure over the times .

Regarding the shot of this Barbet ... well not much to find in terms of negative critique or suggestion to improve this shot from my side .
So overall a good solid frame of this lovely bird on a stick . Love the clean BG and the pose of the subject . Stunning details and super sharpness .
As colors are subjective please do not take my color suggestion too strong into account , but I think the colors are off in OP and RP .... very obvious magenta /blue cast across the whole colors . I would say WB is off !!!
Not sure what you did with your RP ... I would suggest to neutralize the image and from that point color grade it to your liking , might be just me .

TFS Andreas

[Sidharth Kodikal]

Hi Andreas! and thanks for the solid feedback. It's much appreciated.
Yes, my struggle with PP is real, but it's been a lot of fun.

I really am just totally winging it currently.
Subjectivity with colors aside, I really need to learn a lot of these terms that you and others have mentioned in this and previous posts, like neutralize, color grade, clarity, HSL, smart objects...

Not sure what sets the WB off to begin with; either something I do in the workflow, or just the high-ish ISO.
Will start again from RAW and retrace my steps.

Cheers!