An Aquamarine In A Sea Of Emerald

[Shawn Marques]

Double-crested cormorant- Ft. Lauderdale, FL, late morning, partly sunny skies.

Canon 40D, Canon EF 600mm F4 IS USM + 1.4x TC,

Gitzo carbon fiber tripod, Wimberley head

1/800s @ f/7.1, ISO 400, 840mm

[Axel Hildebrandt]

The eye really makes this image. I can't get close to them around here and am not sure whether the plumage has this color or if it is a color cast. I might crop a bit off the right.

[Fabs Forns]

Beautiful eye!!! The plumage certainly looks weird, but if the green grass in in front of him also, it could be a reflection from it, been there, done that.
Agree on cropping some of the right.

[Arthur Morris]

Like the BKGR, the sharp eye, and the perfect head angle. Removed the large cyna/green cast from the blacks and cropped as suggested...

later and love, artie

ps: I did not mind the SQ crop.

[Shawn Marques]

Hi Artie! I was not sure if those cyans/blues belonged in the plumage or not, especially in this light, as I've never gotten this close up to this bird before. This crop looks much better, too. Thank you for taking it upon yourself to fix it! ~Shawn

[Shawn Marques]

Beautiful eye!!! The plumage certainly looks weird, but if the green grass in in front of him also, it could be a reflection from it, been there, done that.
Agree on cropping some of the right.

Hi Fabs. There was no grass around so I'll attempt to remove the cast. I wasn't sure if it was a cast, but since you've been there you should know! Thank you for taking a look.

[Shawn Marques]

Hi Axel. I was back and forth between this crop and a narrower one as you suggested. Normally, on a further I would leave a crop like this, not realizing that a close-up shot would call for a tighter crop. Thank you for your time! ~Shawn

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. Do you know how I got rid of the color cast? (It was mostly cyan.)

later and love, artie

[Shawn Marques]

Hi Artie. I would apply a mask to the bg and eye, and then adjust the cyan channel with either selective color or hue/saturation. Would that be correct?

[Jody Melanson]

YAW. Do you know how I got rid of the color cast? (It was mostly cyan.)

later and love, artie

Created a Hue/Saturation Layer, selected Cyan and Blue and reduced the Saturation using a Mask to keep the colour in the eye?

Great job on the rework, boss.

[Arthur Morris]

Created a Hue/Saturation Layer, selected Cyan and Blue and reduced the Saturation using a Mask to keep the colour in the eye?

Great job on the rework, boss.

Close but no cigar. I tried that first but it destroyed the lovely BKGR colors (as expected). I created a Quick Mask of the black plumage, hit CNTRL U (HUE-SAT on a layer), and de-SATed the cyan and the blue. You can see that I needed to use a smalller brush on the edge of the bird's back as I "missed" painting that in (acutally out of the original) selection (which is then inverted).

later and love and thanks for caring, artie

[Shawn Marques]

I did good then ,no? I believe I did close to what you described , except I made the mask first. I'll try your way, too, as I'm sure it is probably the better way to go!. Just wish I had made that correction from the start.

[Shawn Marques]

Here is the image with a color cast correction and a tighter crop, but with more of the bird showing. I originally cropped much of the bottom portion out because of the dark shadows under the wing. In your opinion, was cropping that out that shadowy correct move to make?

[Glenn Bartley]

That is one beautiful BG!

[Arthur Morris]

I like them both but I especially like the extra room above the bird's head in the re-post.

later and love, artie