Canon 40D
Sigma 50 -500
1/1250
F6.3
exposure +0.33
500mm, hand held
Took this early one morning. What do you think? I think I added too much contrast. And i should have added more exposure correction at the time. What kind of bird is this? I eventually lost this crab to a gull.
maybe a juvenile Lesser Yellowlegs, hard to tell without a size reference, and I am absolutely no expert!
Anyway, whatever it is, I really love this shot. The blur of the crab shows the movement caused by the shorebird tossing its head.
Cheryl, I like the action, the crab, the catchlight, the smooth water and best of all, the water drops! I don't think you added too much contrast and the exposure looks good to me. Can't help with ID...
Early morning sometimes you need to back down the red channel since it over exposes. Also do all your PS changes carefully and by feel since its all appreciation. I like the soft look at this time and do go for high contrast Do have a couple of areas (white) with little detail There is a cyan cast Anyone care to suggest an alternate color balance !!!
Cheryl, as I understand it, to 'back down the red channel', open PS and go to 'enhance', 'adjust colour', then 'adjust hue /saturation.' Here you will find a tiny box that says 'master'. If you click on this you are given a choice of colours to work with. If you pick red you can then desaturate (or saturate) until you are happy with the result. This is in Elements 6 - I'm sure that there is something similar in other versions of PS. Hope this helps!
Regards,
Nicki
All digital cameras seem to oversaturate the reds You can just go to hue/saturation then select the red and lower the saturation. Just a little will make a difference/
I think this image raises an interesting question for me. I like the action, composition, the moving water, the sharpness. What bothers me is I don't know what species of shorebird we have here. I suspect the actual bird may be a lot grayer. Perhaps a bird in winter plumage? A Willet?
Anyway, with PhotoShop et al I find it really easy for me to over-process and all of a sudden I have an image that isn't really much like the real bird. For me, heavy processing makes sense when the image isn't about the bird per se, but is more of an out of the box creation. I think this image is an image of a particular bird, and being terribly old-fashioned, I want to be able to identify it as a real species.
Just one gal's opinion.
Gail
Cheryl
Thanks for posting the original jpeg. I hope someone who is better at shorebirds will look at this bird. It really has me puzzled...maybe a short-billed dowitcher, but I am not comfortable with that id either.
Anyway, I am very much a novice at Photo Shop. For me, I find myself tweaking each component -like contrast, color saturation, etc, and then I look at the resulting image and find that I have lost the subtlety and gentle richness in a rush to vibrancy and high contrast... if that makes any sense. I am sure that it is a common problem. I feel like I need to learn that 'less is more".
There is a lot to like in the image. I hope you'll keep working on it.
Gail
totally understand what you are saying about losing the subtlety and gentle richness.
I think I will post the orig in the bird ID forum and see what they say.
Thanks, Gail
Cheryl the thing that got you in trouble here was the exposure When you underexpose early morning is tough to color balance. Gave it a try and keep getting funky looking results.
Lana is correct on the ID ii its a Willet The look their best when flying since you can see the beautiful upper wing patterns !!!
breakfast
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