A Break From Songbirds

[Aidan Briggs]

An adult winter Royal Tern at the beach in Morro Bay. There were quite a few bird there yesterday morning. I counted over 50 Long-Billed Curlews, and there were around 500 Least Sandpipers.

I tried cleaning up the bill but I didn't like the results, so I kept it as it was.

50D, 100-400mm at 400
1/2500, f/8, ISO 400
Around 70% of Full Frame

[Daniel Cadieux]

I wouldn't mind a bit more room above and left. but still find the comp OK. Nice subtle head turn! I was going to suggest cleaning the bill, but see you've tried. It should be easy with the patch and clone tools. I would also lighten the iris a tiny bit and/or darken the pupil.

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks Daniel. I agree on more room. Terns eyes are really dark, I lightened the iris some, but it started to get noisy.

[Arthur Morris]

Bill clean-up with QMs, divide and conquer, & Patch Tool. 14% Linear Burn on the whites. Eye Doctor work. Please send check for Photoshop services :)

[Randy Stout]

Aidan:

I do agree with Daniel on crop options, but it does work as posted. The catch light, though quite small, does help here. Some species just don't show much detail in the iris. If the light had been really soft, perhaps you could have brought up just a bit more.

Excellent exposure for my tastes.

Cheers

PS: Thanks for the ID help on my finch.
Randy

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks everyone for the help, and no problem Randy :)

Artie, great PS work. I can see some evidence on the bill, but that is probably just from working on the small jpeg. I am posting a close up of the eye to show you the unique pupil shape on this tern. It definitely isn't circular. So should I just darken the existing pupil or make it circular as in your post? I am leaning towards the first choice.

[Stu Bowie]

Aidan, excellent exposure on the whites, good detail there. I agree, Terns eyes are fairly dark, and I like Artie's repost on the bill.

[arash_hazeghi]

Nice portrait Aidan, I also think people is a tad dark as posted and would follow Artie's suggestion on original. just lighten up the iris a bit and run NR to clean up the grain. TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Artie, great PS work. I can see some evidence on the bill, but that is probably just from working on the small jpeg. I am posting a close up of the eye to show you the unique pupil shape on this tern. It definitely isn't circular. So should I just darken the existing pupil or make it circular as in your post? I am leaning towards the first choice.

As far as evidence of PS work on the bill, I left out the last step that I would have done had I been working on a TIFF: select the interior of the whole bill and run about a 1 pixel Gaussian blur. I would have matched the shape of the pupil if I could have seen it in the JPEG.

One thing that folks need to realize is that the irises almost always need to be lightened when they are exposing for the whites because whites need about one stop less light than middle tones.... (See the chapter on exposure/exposure theory in ABP soft cover.)

[Aidan Briggs]

Thanks Artie, I hadn't thought of that.