Red Shoulder Hawk

[John Hawkins]

Photographed in my neighborhood Thanksgiving morning. Should I move the catchlight? Used my Sony A100 with a Sigma 50-500 lense. Data f/8, 1/640, 0 ev, 500mm. ISO 100
Thanks for looking, all c&c's appreciated.
John

[Alfred Forns]

Hi John Excellent capture !!

Sharp and well exposed, just soft light would have made it better but you did well with the light !!! Moving the catchlight would look more natural.

Cropping wise might move the eye a little lower toward an intersecting third, will strengthen the image, also a being on sun angle would have illuminated the bird evenly, the right side is a bit dark I like it a lot !!! You got a keeper !!!

[Fabs Forns]

excellent detail and head turn. It may be my eyes, but I see a slight halo around the whole bird. Did you use Shadow/Highlight?
Judging by the position of the bird (higher than you), 0 Ev may have rendered it a bit under-exposed. Not familiar with Sony SLR though.
There's also a dust bunny on the left margin, almost touching the bird.
Keep them coming!

[John Hawkins]

Thanks for your comments. I recropped and did away with highlight adjustment and added little more saturation. Oh yeah, and moved the catchlight. Better?
John

[Fabs Forns]

John, the sky is an improvement in the repost, but the bird could have used the S/H adjustment.
So the best thing to do is apply the adjustment just to the bird.

Select the sky with the magic wand. Go to Select>Inverse to change the selection from the sky to the bird.
Then go to Select>Modify>Contract and in the box that pops up, type 1 pixel.
This will make sure there's no sky selected. Go to Control/Command J to put your selection on a separate layer and apply the S/H adjustment.
Now, to merge the layers, Control/Command E and your done :)

Hope this helps!

[John Hawkins]

Thank you Fabs, I am not very good at this photoshop yet. I have been using Aperture. I tried what you suggested and here is what I got.
John

[Fabs Forns]

That's it :)