Turnstone bathing
Going through some older images and came back to this Turnstone (Arinaria interpres) shot - taking a jump at the end of its bathing routine. It was the best of a short series - I like the posture and the wing position, including the movement of the wings. Light was not at the best angle and the background was too close and too cluttered.
In Lightroom I used recovery and exposure adjustments to get back some of the white highlights then in PS4 I have set the Black & White points and adjusted slightly the levels and tweaked highlights in curves. Then by way of experimentation, I have multiplied the image to darken overall and with a mask exposed the bird, so only the background is darkened. At its lightest, there is some contrast with the bird a little darker against the background, but here the little turnstone is lighter against a dark background which is now less cluttered.
After all that - my question is - How dark should I go? Is this too dark? Comments and opinions greatly appreciated!
Image was taken with MkIII, EF500f/4L, 1/2000s at f/4.5, ISO 800
Thanks,
Gerald
