nice habitat shot. the one thing that i think kills the image is that the bird turned it's head away from the light putting it in the shadows. would have been nice to get the eye and green lores lit up!!
I like the pose with the nice out stretched wings.
Exposure of whites looks very well done.
I think cropping out the bottom green grass leaves more attention on bird and pano also adds to feeling of movement. I might also remove the long grass stock right in front of bird.
The basic image looks good, got a fine landing pose with stretched wings and a pleasing bg !! Like the legs separated and crop selection ... if you had a tiny bit more would have liked it at the top.
Settings wise when you want to minimize the bg go wide open !!
Biggest thing you can change is the processing !! Did a re work with these changes. Lighten the image with levels setting setting the black/white point. Used the new shadow highlight in CS5 which seems to be doing better than CS4 (like it), further lighten by dodging, did a curves adjustment to the whites for detail and cloned away the one piece of grass by the bill (wasn't really careful) ... could also soften the bg a bit more but is best on the original, tough working on the jpeg !! .. forgot also soften the transition dark/light by the wing, just use the clone stamp tool at 50% opacity with a soft brush and clone form one to the other until it looks better.
Al has nailed it!! And provided a nice repost to demonstrate - Jay just got to get that PP down a little better.
Do you have Arties Digital Basics??
Keep em coming.
Egret Takes Flight
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