You gave me such terrific suggestions on my last post, here's an attempt to implement them. I chose a slightly different pose, I like this one with the slightly more open wings and beak. Then I copied part of the sandcastle from another image in this series, and worked to tone down the brights and show more detail, and lighten the face area. I did no work to the sand in front of the bird, that's the way it looked, but maybe I should?
Great pose and light, Grace. A pet peeve of mine is the terns wing tips capitalizing in all the sharpening. I would sharpen the head some more and mask out the sharpening in the wing tips, especially the left wing. As presented, it's sharper than the head.
Very nice again, but agree with Fabs, altough in stead of sharpening the head more, I would apply less sharpening to the white lines of the primary feathers.
Congratulaitons.
Hi Grace, its a terrific image and spot on. I've been trying to take this particular pose since a long time but not sucessful yet. Well captured without blowing up highlights and the angle here is perfect showing both the upside and downside of the plumage. Congrats!!