GBH ~ Toss It Or?

[Jim Fenton]

So...I'm tracking this great blue heron as it jumps from opening to opening in an almost totally frozen river, trying unsuccessfully to steal catfish from mergansers.

As I see the incredible wing spread show that this bird is presenting, I lock focus and track it into that I assume will be the next turn and just as the wings expand to their greatest arc....my subject encounters a deep shadow from a tall pine tree. (aka Murhpy's law of shooting subjects out in the sun with big pine trees between you and the sun late in the day)

I've tried everything I can think of with it at this point and I've ended up not liking it except for the wing spread.

I've now sorta desaturated it as I couldn't find anything useful to do with the hefty blue / cyan cast of it in the shadow.

Simply toss it?

What would you do???

Nikon D300s, 600VR, TC14EII, ISO 640, 1/500th

[arash_hazeghi]

Don't toss Jim, still has killer wing position and sharp. Did you try running NR in NX2? Does a good job when lifting shadows using D-lightning. If you can't get rid of the grain I would add some grain to BG to just give the whole thing a grainy BW film feel. still nice

[Jim Fenton]

I kinda liked the grain personally :)

I agree with you however, that ADDING grain to the background might make it more interesting.

[Doug Brown]

Can you post the same crop but without any PP?

[Jim Fenton]

Here is pretty much the same crop...cropped, re-sized and nothing else done to it including any NR or final sharpening, etc.

[arash_hazeghi]

Here is pretty much the same crop...cropped, re-sized and nothing else done to it including any NR or final sharpening, etc.

Jim, looks like it will clean up easily unless you want to keep the noise ;)

[Doug Brown]

Well if you're going for life-like color, here's my attempt. The selection of the bird is a little crude but I don't have a ton of time right now.

[Morkel Erasmus]

what a wingspread - I feel your pain regarding shadows popping up out of nowhere ;)

I quite like the B&W and agree with Arash that giving the whole image an old-school grainy feel might help.

[Fabs Forns]

I color balanced it via blur average, found the cast and used Color Balance. Then used Nik Color Efex tonal contrast to soften the BG
I must admit I'm so tired I can't see the shadow. You may need to use noise reduction in the master file and I didn't sharpen it.

[Mike Godwin]

Wow, I really like Doug's repost... can you tell us what you did?

[Dave Leroy]

Definitely a keeper. It will be hard to beat that wing position, clear head and legs. Also lots of good ideas with different options for pp'n. OOTB is another option, although I kind of like the idea of an overall grainy look to it. Too bad about the shadow interfering with an exceptional look at the heron. Dave

[Mike Milicia]

Fabs looks to be right on with the Color Balance. Might want to apply it selectively as it looks like only the bird and a tiny bit of ice and water at the bottom was in the shade. If you can get away with lightening the bird a bit without it getting too noisy, you'll have a great image. Pose, wing position, head separation and angle couldn't be better.

[Ilija Dukovski]

The pose is too good to be tossed away...
Here's my BW version...

[Jim Fenton]

Lots of great ideas folks...thanks!

So far I'm liking the Fabs color version and the Ilija BW version :)

As far as the "shadow" location....the entire bird and a small portion of the foreground are what's in shadow...a split second later and it was out in the sun again but the nice wing positioning was gone.

[Tony Whitehead]

Here's my crack at it, Jim. I think it's a keeper with that dramatic pose and I'm sure the raw will yield more than these jpg edits.

[david cramer]

These are usually tough decisions. Some really great element in a photo but lots of other problems. I'd probably toss it and move on unless you want to make it an artsy OOTB image. Of all the ones reposted, I think Doug's and Tony's come closest to a keeper because of the brightening they have added to the head.