Steller's Jay

[Bill Bryant]

Golden, CO
1DmkII
840mm
ISO 250
1/320
f/7.1

[Alfred Forns]

I like the setting very much Bill !!! Different.

Good pose and head turn, well expose/sharp. Would suggest moving the bird down slightly in frame. Excellent !!!

[Doug Brown]

Very nice Steller's Jay Bill! I like the sharpness and the somewhat unconventional perch. Eye contact is good. I might play around with levels or curves to get the blacks a little blacker, but that's about it.

[Fabs Forns]

Beautiful aspresented, as Doug mentions, a bit more contrast would help.

[Bill Bryant]

Thanks all for the input. Fabs or Doug, can you tell me what exactly what you are looking at that suggests that more contrast would be better? For example, what exactly are you looking at when that thought occurs? Is the head? tail? straw? BG?

Doug, when I was messing with this, it seemed that as I turned up the blacks, it was harder to see detail in the head which is darker to begin with.

I now these are hard to explain, but it is this level of nuance that is difficult to grasp.

Thanks again,

Bill

[Doug Brown]

To my eye the blacks just don't look black enough Bill. I would darken them a bit while keeping an eye on the details in the blacks. This is a step that I usually perform during RAW processing. Here's a repost of your image.

[Bill Bryant]

It does look a bit richer this way. Did yo do it in PS or lightroom? Curves, or just the "blacks" slider in LR?

Gracias