Motif - colour: Mandarin Duck

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Folks,
Well, they don't come much more colourful than this fellow!! :cool:
40D 100-400 @ 400mm
ISO 100
AV F8 1/80 sec
Exp comp -0.7
Look forward to your c & c's.
Regards,
Nicki

[Doug Brown]

I believe that's a Wood Duck Nicki, and you certainly chose well for the Color motif! Love the exposure control and the iridescence. I'd like to see the eye a little sharper. Thanks for posting!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Nicki - he is a colourful fellow isn't he. Love the eye and the drop of water on the neck. Exposure looks great. I like :)

Been having a play around - looks a little soft on my screen - I would add some sharpening 157/.3/.0 looks about right on my screen. I would then check that the eye doesn't need any additional work.
Would also tone down the bright spots in the BG and add some gaussian blur to it as well.

:)

[Harold Davis]

hi nicki. with the your other photos where you have birds looking away or have unique compos, i have really enjoyed them. with this one i feel disconnected from the subject. i dont know why. maybe it's the head angle. i cant put my finger on it. i feel this is not as strong as your others. dont mean to be negative. i wished i could figure out what it is.

[Julie Kenward]

Really pretty one, Nicki! I think the eye and the bill are a bit soft but the rest is really lovely. Great job!!!

[Gus Cobos]

Love the Woody my lady. This is my favorite duck. I do like the head angle; lets call it the unconventional pose...:D The colors are very vibrant and the soft pale multi colored background compliments him very well...:) congrats...:cool:

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Very nicely done Nicki. Have never seen on of these before. Beautiful colors.
Regards,

[Desmond Chan]

Yep, it's a wood duck all right, a close relative to Mandarin duck, which is also colorful.

It looks like it has a color cast. The whites have a higher blue component in them. And you knew the composition is good.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Guys,
OK, just testing - I knew it was a wood duck...:o:eek:;)
Thanks so much for all your comments and suggestions. I took a whole series of this fellow - I rarely see them out of the water and he was running in front of such a pretty BG. Unfortunately this was the only image that was even remotely sharp...:o:( I just couldn't resist the colours!!!
Regards,
Nicki

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Nicki Haven't seen many complaints with the bg but those round white oof circles don't help the image much I think anything very light in the bg is going to be an eye grabber !!!!

These guys are so difficult to photograph You need light to have the feathers glowing but might be tough with the white ones !!!

[Doug Brown]

Hi Nicki! I've taken the liberty of doing a repost of your photo. I've done some selective sharpening of the eye and head, evened out the BG, boosted the brightness of the head, and did a levels adjustment. I hope you like it.

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Doug!
Thank you so much for the repost - I really appreciate that you took the time and trouble to improve the image. It looks loads better now - even more colourful!
How did you blur the BG? It looks great and I haven't mastered this in PS yet...
Many thanks again!
Regards,
Nicki

[Harold Davis]

awesome repost doug!!! looks great!!

[Doug Brown]

Hi Nicki! I didn't blur the BG at all. What I did was use the quick select tool to select only the duck. Then I copied the selection to its own layer. Next, I duplicated the background layer. On the duplicated BG layer, I chose the brush tool and selected some green in the BG using the dropper tool. After that, I just painted a bunch of green to help tame the bright spots in the BG. Since I have the bird layer sitting on top of the duplicated BG layer, I can be fairly indiscriminant about painting colors in the BG. Hope this helps!

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Hi Doug!
Thanks so much for the PS info - I shall go away and practise hard!
Regards,
Nicki