These guys were playing a game ring hopping around the tree trunk when one decided it was time to get serious and held it's ground. I could have made the image twice as big but would have lost the morning fall colors in the top of the image so I left it alone. The display on these birds are really cool.
Last edited by Bill McCrystyn; 11-03-2008 at 08:58 AM.
I'm glad you didn't crop more than this...excellent scene! I'm just trying to figure out the BG tree trunk - did it just end conveniently behind the main tree, or did you eliminate some of it during post-processing? Either way it kinda distracts that it ends so abruptly like it does. Everything else is very nice :-)
I like the composition a lot and the fantastic action. I think that this excelent image can be improved adding a little touch of contrast and saturation (but saving the whites that are almost hot). You have what seems to me like cloning marks on the water over the head of the woodpecker located at the left.
Thank you guys. It's one of my favorites. The dead tree believe it or not broke off halfway up behind the front tree - but - did leave a 3' long 2"-3" branch sticking out across the water just above the males head. I appreciate pointing out I did a poor job cleaning away the limb and I do believe a little extra contrast worked. 4 eyes are better than one. Good job!!
Much better Bill but the image still looking flat and without contrast and that is due to the fact that your image is in RGB mode and, for posting in web, you have to convert images to sRGB mode. Please note that if you open your image in PS and you made a quick comparison with the same image in BPN you will see a noticeably difference because you didn´t convert the image to sRGB. Just try and see the difference...;)