Winter Cardinal

[Bryan Hix]

It's been a while since I have made a decent photo of a cardinal. I thought this one turned out to be a pretty good one with the reds contrasting against the snowy blue color. This was a setup and although I like the pine branch, it could have been trimmed better. I had to back off the reds on, but there are some on the chest that are clipped. I can't figure out how to bring them down without making it look strange (at least with my software). All critiques welcomed. Thanks for looking.

Canon 1D Mk3
600mm f/4 with 25mm ext tube
ISO 250, 1/800th @ f/8
Av Mode, 0 comp
LR2 and PSE7

[Julie Brown]

Bryan, I like the nut in the bird's beak and the pine needles in the FG. HA, eye contact look good. I can see the reds look hot, and overall the image seems a bit bright. I'm no expert with PP, but maybe you could use the adjustment brush to tone down the breast and the perch.:)

[Jeff Parker]

I have trouble with cardinals being oversaturated also. The blue and white background here is nice.

[Dave Leroy]

A really good use of a set up.
If bird had only been a tad lower the upper part of branch would not have been seen.

I like the nice contrast between the blue bg and nice reds of the Cardinal.
I am not sure if you knew ofa couple tutorials on handling reds or not, but here is a link to one of them.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=29761

Dave

[Bryan Hix]

Thanks Dave. I need help, because when I choose the red channel, this is what I get. Nothing looks clipped on this. What am I doing wrong??

[Markus Jais]

A beautiful shot. I like the colors in the bird and the background where one can see that it was winter.
The perch looks very good to me. The food in the bill is a great bonus.
Great sharpness.

Markus

[Ofer Levy]

Lovely image! Reds look fine to me. Great detail, sharpness and light. Composition looks spot on to me to.

[Jim Crosswell]

Great setting and image! I like the eye contact and detail in this image. Well done.

[Arthur Morris]

Try this: go to Selective Color, pick the RED channel, and add about 60 points of CYAN to the REDs. It is in the RED-ucation thread in the ER :)

[Bryan Hix]

Thanks Artie, I just don't know if I can do that in Elements?? I might be limited by the program, but if someone knows please tell me what I can try. I tried to just pump up the CYAN channel in lightroom to see if that worked and I can't see a difference. I think this might be one of those cases where CS4 would come in handy. The more editing I do, the more I see why I might need to bite the bullet and buy the full Photoshop software.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Bryan, I am not sure if Elements offers Selective Color; you might try posting the question in Digital Workflow. I would be dead in the water without PShop.