Spoonbills of Sanibel Is. Florida

[Matthew Gaige]

Most of the time I see these early in the morning before it gets too hot. As the morning goes on they start flying off, sometimes overhead.

Though I like the picture what would make it stand out more? Border, background...?

I used a Canon 50D with a Sigma 120-400mm OS lens. I like handheld photos, because good things happen quick. 800 ASA, 1/2000, f5.6

[Harry Behret]

Nice capture of one of my favorite subjects. I would have framed it or cropped it to give the subject more room on the right.

[Adams Serra]

Hi Matthew,
Welcome to BPN
I like the wing position and composition, i would try to lighten the underwing a little.

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Matthew, big welcome to BPN. hope you can fell right at home here.

I took your image and did a free adjustments to it:
Cropped from behind.
Used Viveza (PS plugin) to lighten the underwing
Used Linear contrast (preset) in Curves
Selected the whites and multiplied them in PS because they became a little hot with the contrast increase.
Last but not least, extra sharpening.

You can find a lot of tutorials in our Tutorials and How-to Repository Forum, like this one:

http://birdphotographers.net/forums/...read.php?t=834

Looking forward to seeing more from you.

[Matthew Gaige]

This is a great online place. And yes the picture looks much improved. And after the comparison I thought why didn't I do that? Thanks for the comments, that's what I came for.

So Fabs, what made you choose Viveza and not another technique, like "Highlights and Shadows?

[Fabs Forns]

Matthew, Viveza is a color control point and I just wanted the pink in that area affected.
Of course, the results would have been much better if I had worked on the original.

Glad you liked it!

[Bryan Hix]

Great BIF capture. I like what Fabs did to improve the crop and bring out the colors.

[Matthew Gaige]

The extra sharpening is an improvement, but when I used "Unsharpen Mask" too much on this it looked too harsh. Did you use something else?

[Christian Dionne]

Beautiful shot Fabs, I like the lines. I think I like the 2nd crop better, it gives the impression of more space on the front. I wished there was more details in the dark areas like the feet, maybe lightening the darks a little would help. I see a lot of sharpening artifacts on the 2nd shot though.

Nice colors!