American Crow

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Took this image at Shark Valley FL in January. The bird flew into this broken tree right in front of me and stood still for a while, allowing for a full frame composition (no crop).

D700, 70-200 f/2.8 + 1.4 TC (@ 280mm), HH
ISO 400, f/4, 1/400
PP in PS CS5, Nik, and OnOne's Mask Pro 4.1. In addition to the usual routine (setting the white, black, and 50% gray points, sharpening, NR), I applied a Gaussian blur to the BG.

C&C very welcome.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Ricardo,

Greetings. Outstanding detail on the dark feathers and I like the inquisitive pose with the tilt of the head. I'm not sure about the background treatment. There seems to be a glow around different parts of the subject that I'm guessing is feathering with the Gaussian blurred layer. You might try the lens blur rather than straight gaussian... but blur != bokeh ;)

Cheers,

-Michael-

[David Thomasson]

I applied a Gaussian blur to the BG.

That's what caused the halo around the bird. See the discussion here.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Ricardo, nice positioning of the subject along with good detail. I also noticed the halo around the bird. Good advice give above with Dave's links proving helpful...

[Alfred Forns]

Just the halo Ricardo but sure is a nice looking bird and pose !!! ... great link, worth digging into !!

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Thanks, guys, for pointing out the halo, to which I was obviously blind. I'll check out the link to see if I can fix it.

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Thanks, Al. Will look at the link right away.

[Meesh Fink]

I like the bird and perch, and the exposure seems right on to get fine detail. The pose conveys the intelligent nature of these guys.

I wonder if he really looked that blue. He seems to have a blue cast.

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

Here's my attempt to get rid of the halo. The tutorials were very helpful, but I must say actually working on this process is quite challenging (I like that!) and laborious (don't like that so much!), so I'm not sure I have it right yet. I do hope the repost is better, but please let me know. Your opinions are always welcome, of course.

[Meesh Fink]

Sorry to say - I can see edges in the bokeh on the repost. It has an odd, digitized look to it compared to the first version.

Was the original BG bad?

[David Thomasson]

Here's my attempt to get rid of the halo. The tutorials were very helpful, but I must say actually working on this process is quite challenging (I like that!) and laborious (don't like that so much!), so I'm not sure I have it right yet. I do hope the repost is better, but please let me know. Your opinions are always welcome, of course.

Very nice, Ricardo ... this is much better than the original post. As Meesh mentioned, there are some slight edgy lines in the background. Easily removed: Duplicate the image layer, run Surface Blur, put a black mask on that layer, and paint with white to remove the lines.

[Fabs Forns]

Excellent repost with great blacks!

[Roy Priest]

Nice repost and I see you got back the tip of the bill that was missing in the original. Love the detail in the blacks.

[Lance Peters]

Repost is looking much better - Nice detail in the blacks.
Good discussion and link is worth reading!!
TFS

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great re post Ricardo, also love the composition and HA

[Ricardo Rodriguez]

You're right, Meesh and David: There are a bunch of edges in the BG in the repost. I followed David's instructions and here is the re-repost, hopefully without those edges (used Surface Blur for the first time, thanks David). BTW Meesh, nothing to be sorry about. I truly thank you for pointing out any issues I may have missed. I've learned more PS in the process of trying to improve this image.

Thanks Fabs, Roy, Lance, and Oscar: I appreciate your comments. Indeed, those details in the blacks were the main reason I decided to work on this image and post it, although I knew dealing with the BG would be a challenge for me.