Pond Heron

[susanschermer]

Unusual pose on a common bird, but one I'd never seen before. This one from a visit to Bharatpur Bird sanctuary in Rajahstan -
Canon 1D Mark III, ISO800, f/4.5, 1/1600

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Interesting pose and good eye contact. I would give it more room and wish we could see more of the far wing.

[Arthur Morris]

Sharp. love the raised wing and the underwing detail. What's with the dark line bordering what we can see of the far wing?

[susanschermer]

Hi Artie, I looked at the RAw file to see about that dark line around the far wing. There was a heavy dark branch behind the bird which I eliminated with ROT's quick mask method. I guess I didn't do a thorough job. Thanks for pointing that out.

[Randy Stout]

Susan:

Interesting wing up look. It looks like the startle effect I get from preflashes.

Did yo do any work on the eye. It looks a bit much for my taste, but I don't know this bird, and perhaps that is just the way they are?

Thanks for sharing!

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Artie, I looked at the RAw file to see about that dark line around the far wing. There was a heavy dark branch behind the bird which I eliminated with ROT's quick mask method. I guess I didn't do a thorough job. Thanks for pointing that out.

Thanks Susan. That's what I figgered. Work large and use a small Eraser brush at about 30% hardness to clean up QM edges. Then remember to put the hardness back to zero :)

[Arthur Morris]

Did yo do any work on the eye. It looks a bit much for my taste, but I don't know this bird, and perhaps that is just the way they are? Randy

I agree with Randy that the eye looks a bit too bright. I have refined my Eye Doctor techniques as follows. When I work on the pupil and then the iris, I leave the layers intact. When my work is done, I look at the image full frame and then magnified a bit. If either or both look overdone, I can simply click on either layer and reduce the Opacity until the eye looks natural. When it does, then I flatten the layer masks into the BKGR copy.