Red-Tail Hawk Dark Morph

[Sue Thomson]

Late afternoon yesterday ... Kelowna, BC Canada

Nikon D70, 28-300mm with 2XTC, ISO 200, 1/320, f6.3, 200mm



I spose I could have done some lightening on his face ... ??? and perhaps some feather highlights?

Thanks for looking.

Cheers,
Sue

[Raul Quinones]

Hi Sue,
IMO the image is too dark (it could be my monitor), also there are some dust spot above the head, and the tail is clip... but I like the picture and will love to see the dark morph.

Here is a quick re-work at you picture, hope you don't mind.

[Daniel Cadieux]

I would prefer somewhere between the two. Had the head been turned more as a profile the light would have nicely lit that side of the face. If this is cropped (I assume it is) I would revisit the image and add back some room top, bottom, and left (hoping you have the complete tail on the original). Very cool to see a dark morph, and natural prey!

[Alfred Forns]

Agree with Daniel Would like the re post maybe with slight more mid tone contrast !!! Adding the room would make a difference !!!

[Sue Thomson]

I have many, many shots of this bird ... profile, face on, head up, head down, yanking the guts out of that poor little mouse, looking around, you name it, I shot it :D

I seem to be having an issue with CS2 - maybe someone can advise??? I am new to it - was using PS7 before and loved it with no problems. However, with CS2, when I edit a pic, it looks just fine for lightness/darkness/contrast/sat. Then when I save it for web, it goes darker. Any suggestions??? These were shot in RAW, in case that matters, but it doesn't like jpegs either :(

Let me show you what I mean, okay???

This is how CS2 saved this robin pic: (darker than I wanted)



And this is how I wanted it to look (went back in and adjusted Curves) It was a guessing game about how light it actually was ...



Any suggestions? Your help is much appreciated!

Cheers,
Sue

[Sue Thomson]

That first image (and these ones, too) are full frame ... I was really close to him - maybe 12-15 feet away???

Here's a few more of that hawk ...







He was actually very dark chocolate brown - not as light brown as Raul's adjustments.

I will edit more - seems to take forever running CS2 on my poor old puter. It's groaning under the weight of it:(

Cheers,
Sue