another fledged dipper

[christopher galeski]

took this shot this morning,bit better light today,cannon 50d,400mm +1/4ex,tripod,1/500sec,f9.0,-1/1/3 ec,iso500,cropped,cloned out some bright stones in ps.as I said yesterday,they seem to be in the shade most of the time,but this came into the light.thanks,comments good or bad.

[Arthur Morris]

Love this one. A bit of light really makes it pop. Pose--with the raised tail, SH, head angle, and EXP all perfect. The green water is cool too.

Now this might sound strange, but a bit higher here would have been an option: it would have placed the bird's head and face against a lighter portion of the BKGR....

Did you do some work on the BKGR and/or around the bill?

All in all this is one sweet image.

[christopher galeski]

thanks Arthur for your comments,yes I did,their was some blurred stones in the BG,and one just were the beak is,it spoilt it,so I cloned themout,and thanks for the tip on taking the shot a bit higher,I understand what your saying.thanks again.

[Arthur Morris]

YAW. Good job on the background but not on the beak; there is a wide and noticeable halo there. If you have Digital Basics, there is a technique called "Protect and Defend" that will allow you to clone right up to the edge of the bill without cloning over it. If not, I believe that you can find it as as a freebie in the Bulletin Archives if you use the search feature. If not, consider getting a copy of DB as my whole digital workflow and every Photoshop trick that I use is in there. :)

[christopher galeski]

you are right Arthur,hows this repost.thanks,

[Arthur Morris]

Much better; no halo around the bill. Were you working on the JPEG or the master file? (The contrast seems to be up a little in the repost and the cheek patch looks brighter.)

[christopher galeski]

no it was not the master file,it was the jpeg,and so was the first post,I work in raw file in dpp,then in ps jpeg if I haveto.thanks for your comments.

[Arthur Morris]

That explains why the repost was more contrasty.... Best not to re-save JPEGs. It sounds as if you not optimizing your master files after they are converted....