Hi Michael. Good close-up, especially the down-curved bill. Maybe next time try for a pose where the bird's head is tilted towards you on an angle, and then you'd really have a stunning portrait. Great background as well, with plenty of interesting colours. To me the body itself doesn't look very sharp and the colours of the bird all round seem drab. Some saturation may help.
I enjoy these close-up portraits Michael. The smooth texture of that beak is great and to have it all in focus is good, facing shots with long beaks are difficult to manage with narrow DOF from wide-open long lens and a side-on view like this makes it easier. To me it looks over-exposed - there are a lot of clipped highlights on the beak and neck. If this is a raw capture it may be worth re-processing with different exposure and contrast values. To me the background would have been better if uniform (all green/yellow). I would also selectively brighten the eye. It may be a little oversharpeened as there appears to be a prominent halo on the breast and back.
Thanks gentlemen. I agree on all accounts. The halo is probably from overuse of the clarity slider as I don't do much sharpening on my images. Truth be known I am still struggling (after two years) with exactly what to do with a nature image (always RAW files) in CS2/CS3. Portraits are not too difficult to deal with. Wildlife and Landscapes are another story...
BTW- in ACR there are no overexposed places. I'm not sure what would cause the beak to look that way but I agree that it does.
Portrait of an Ibis
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