Very pretty bird and BG Nikolay! I've just been in California photographing stilts from much the same position that you were; lying on the ground with my tripod legs as flat as they can go. It makes for some beautiful images. I like the composition here. I wouldn't mind a bit more light on the bird, but it also looks good as posted. The one thing I would do is remove the bright spots in the water. Thanks for posting!
Fantastic result Nikolay. Very good low angle and great eye contact. I suggest some extra work in PS adjusting the levels to add light to the image (you have a lot of information and details on the eye and the white areas on the plumage looks better IMO after levels adjustment). Big congratulations for such a fine image and thanks for sharing!
Nicolay I think that this image doesn´t need much improvement because is really good in the way that you presented:). My suggestion is just due to a personal matter of taste. Here I duplicated the layer, selected the bird, deleted the BG and played a little with the levels in the bird. Then selected the eye and copied to a new layer to increase the contrast and light on the eye (this way I can go far with the processing of the eye without burning the delicate white areas of the bird). I performed an aditional round of unsharp mask to the bird because I downsized the image size to 800pix.
hmmm, very good suggestions, especially for the eye. I did not think of fixing the sharpness and the eye contrast separately, obviously it works, as seen from your PP. The levels adj will see at home, at my photomonitor, here in the office it is hard to comment on colors subject, as monitors are not set for images processing. Thank you very much, I appreciate any other suggestions :D
Nikolay, is a joy to play in PS with such a fine image like this. If you need some additional information about my selective processing on the eye just send me a PM and I will try to do my best to help you. :)
I am sure that the original is a RAW file, if so you can do a much better job juste converting the original file to two different versions, one exposed for the whites and the other one exposed for the BG to your choice. Combining both images would produce a very good result and if you check the histogram of the resulting image you will fing almost no losses of information. Blessed RAWs!!!!!:D
Originally Posted by Nikolay Staykov - shotlandetsa
hmmm, very good suggestions, especially for the eye. I did not think of fixing the sharpness and the eye contrast separately, obviously it works, as seen from your PP. The levels adj will see at home, at my photomonitor, here in the office it is hard to comment on colors subject, as monitors are not set for images processing. Thank you very much, I appreciate any other suggestions :D
Last edited by Juan Aragonés; 09-01-2008 at 09:17 AM.
one of the finest shorebird images I have seen., I like Juans edit a lot.maybe a little more room around the bird if you have it, and a 24x36 print would look awesome.
Agree with Raymond and with Jack N.; this is as good as it gets. That cranberry background is superb. A crop from the bottom would make it even better (which is a depressing thought). Juan's superb PS skills have improved an incredibly wonderful image.
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Originally Posted by Nikolay Staykov - shotlandetsa
