Little Blue Heron Liftoff

[Dave Phillips]

with a large population of tadpoles present, the little blues, adult and juvenile are
having a feast and providing some good photo ops

1DMkIIN, 400mm f/5.6L, 1.4X tc, ISO 800, 1/2500, f/8, -.33EV
taken about 9:30 am.....removed one branch and added canvas to right.
I realize the shadow is a bit harsh, but it looked unnatural when I removed it

thanks for looking and continued critique

[Ed Cordes]

Nice sharp image with pretty good control of the whites. It also has good action. The shadow doesn't bother me at all as it does look natural. While the whites are good, I wonder what Artie's new linear burn could do to bring out any detail?

[Dave Phillips]

Nice sharp image with pretty good control of the whites. It also has good action. The shadow doesn't bother me at all as it does look natural. While the whites are good, I wonder what Artie's new linear burn could do to bring out any detail?

Thanks for comment Ed....Artie's linear burn would be more useful in an image with hotter whites IMO.
In a full size, I actually see very good detail in whites of this heron....thanks for taking time to comment

[Arthur Morris]

Like the image but felt that the optimization could have been better. Let me know what y'all think of the repost. Thanks!

[Rosl Roessner]

I like the original, but the repost is even better!
The details of the wing feathers are outstanding now!
What did you do??? I want to learn it!!!

The eye and beak look a bit oversharpened to me.

[Arthur Morris]

Glad that you noticed Rosl. I selected the bird with a Quick Mask and ran unsharp mask at about 210/.3 or so. I made sure to save the selection. After I sharpened, I loaded the selection and used the Lasso tool to eliminate the shaded underwing and the head from the selection and also eliminated the small shadows on the feather tips... Then I did a Linear Burn at abot 10% Opacity. Lastly I increased the Yellow SAT about 20 points. I should have gotten rid of the specular highlights on the bill too.

Does the head look oversharpened on both or just on the repost? (The head on the ORIG looked soft to me and the head on the repost looks fine).

[Dave Phillips]

thanks Artie, the kind of tips I need

[Arthur Morris]

You are most welcome. I should have mentioned that most everything I did is in Digital Basics and that I learned Quick Masking from Robert O'Toole's APTATS CD.

[Rosl Roessner]

Hi Artie,
thanks for telling me about it. I found your thread about Linear Burn and tried it with some images. I am glad to see, that you did it with an opacity of about 10%, because I felt that the effect is really strong and I lowered the opacity very much, when I tried it now with my pictures.
I am struggling with creating a mask, but I will go on trying.....
Thanks for ahring your experience.

To me the head looks oversharpened only in your repost, but to me a lot of pictures look a bit oversharpened, don't know why....

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. With some images you need just a low % opactiy. With one image I actually ran two Linear Burns at 100%!

As for the Quick Masks, the basics of Quick Masking are in Digital Basics and the advanced stuff is in Roebrt O'Toole's APTATS CD.

Thanks for your BLUBB order; you will love it!