Juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron

[denise ippolito]

Canon 40D
100-400 mm
1/200 sec. at f/5.6
ISO 500
HH

Hope I got the ID correct

[Ramon M. Casares]

Lovely portrait, nice light, and pose, I would try jut a tad more SAT, BG is good as it tells us a bit about the enviroment but without distracting much. Good comp and details Denise. Congratulations!

[Kim Rollins]

Denise -
You have some nice NJ birds and you are capturing them well. I think you got color, etc. right on this one.
Nice job! These juveniles are a bit ugly are they not? ;-)



The change won't be much but you might try this if you like -
Load it back into CS4
Levels Adjustment Layer set 0/0.76/248
Flatten (or as alternative activate top layer and combine all layer in new one keyboard cnt+alt+Shift+E)
Dup. Layer and run USM on that layer at 267/0.2/0 Immediately go Edit>Fade>Luminosity>OK
Dup. this Sharpened layer
Change Blending Mode on Dup sharp Layer1 to Darken
Change Blending Mode on Dup sharp Layer2 to Lighten
Click on and activate the Sharp Lighten layer and back opacity off to around 80% or a little less.
Flatten

You might through on a Adjustment layer Vibrance on top of that too - plus 2 Saturation and crank the vibrance over about 70+

[denise ippolito]

Ramon, I added some more saturation-

[denise ippolito]

Kim, Thankyou for your imput-I'll have to try that.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Denise...The second post does it for me. I agree with Ramon's critique.

[Kim Rollins]

Kim, Thankyou for your imput-I'll have to try that.

Denise -
I had a little play as I suggested above and got this -


I may have pushed vibrance a bit to high as there is the cast on lower belly and side of neck that was accented a bit to much IMO.

Best to you.

[Randy Stout]

Denise:

I like your little guy. Always fun to see how they start out!

I like your repost better. He pops better.

I like the framing and the environmental content. The only bit I find mildly distracting is the branch in the background that intersects his beak. I might consider burning that in a bit to darken it, or perhaps lose it, if you are comfortable with that sort of editing.

Just for fun, I copied the image and played with the black point slider. It was very easy to see changes in the bird in relationship to his environment, making him pop more or less out from the background. It also easily removed the slight green cast.

Daniel taught me about the black slider and color casts.

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

[denise ippolito]

Randy, I lightened the branches and adj. the green cast- In the orig. the BG was a bit darker I added some of that darkness back in.

[Stu Bowie]

What a choice of posts, but Im going with your second repost Denise. The sat in that, although only slight, works, and I like the BG as is. Lovely pose of the little guy, and nice and sharp. Well captured.

[Randy Stout]

Denise:

I do prefer the last repost because of the background. I just personally didn't like the stick merging with bill.

Others may not be bothered by that.
Cheers
Randy

[denise ippolito]

Randy, I think you're right about the stick-good eye!