Nice work, Bill! Great details throughout and eye contact from your subject. There a couple things that I might do to improve this image. First, I would crop some off the left to get rid of the black feathers against the left side of the frame. I'd also add a little canvas to the top of the frame. Maybe increase the contrast while you're in there ;) Well done.
Edit: I went ahead and made the changes that I suggested and attached a revised version below. Let me know what you think. (There's a bit of a noticable sharpening halo around the bill)
Thanks Blake. I though about cropping tighter on the left. I used shadow/highlight twice on this image and probable went a little far. These heads always come out dark for some reason. I also did manage to do a extra canvass addition today again so I can do that also. Thanks for taking time to comment!1 :)
Very nicely done, Bill, lots of detail. I love the soft light and diagonal bill that makes a strong compo line. A little more room at the top will make even better.
I'm not a fan of high contrast, so it's good for me as presented.
I really like this image Bill and your exposure and detail as well as lovely lighting makes this image special. Excellent capture and thanks for sharing .
High contrast or not, this is excellent. It is hard to make a stork look good. And you did it. I love wood storks by the way. Post more if you have them. Revised one is better.
Thanks Blake for the re-work. It does look better. Are you saying mine has a halo or yours does or both? I sometimes use smart sharpen and other times USM. I used arties suggestion for my S/H settings and it didnt seem to work for me so I just left them at default and that seem to do better. Not a big fan of S/H but seems like alot use it here?
Thank you Fabs, Judy, Jim and Grady for the comments. That keeps me on my toes and they are appreciated. :)
Hi, Bill! You're welcome. When I mentioned the sharpening halo, I meant it was noticable in both (I actually made it worse by adding a touch of USM). I really like smart sharpen to reduce the time I spend working on an image. Before smart sharpen (to be certain to avoid a halo) I would select my subject and use USM on my subject only.
Bill, for homogeneous backgrounds as this one, select the background with the magic wand. Invert the selection. Select>Modify>Contract by one pixel, the sharpen as desired. No halos because you are working inside of the edge.