I like it, but it bothers me that the eye has almost disappeared in the surrounding feathers. In my own work, I am always puzzled, what can be done to make the eye stand out more when it is surrounded by such dark feathers. Not a criticism here, just wondering how to do this. I used curves on a selection to lighten the iris on a Gannet photo I last posted....Would pushing exposure or highlights up on a birds face demean the true color/shading the bird really appears in?
Of course, monitor display variations and the upload requirements here are other considerations.
You bring up a good question. When I take photos of birds with lots of whites and blacks, I've been trying to expose to the right so that I have better detail in the blacks. I find that 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop of overexposure is easily recovered in RAW processing. In Lightroom 2 there is an exposure brush that I use to lighten the blacks if needed. In PS there's are any number of tools to bring out detail in the blacks. I also lighten the iris. On my monitor this photo has pretty good differentiation between the eye and the surrounding feathers.
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