help? White bird against blue water, how to make it show up better?

[pat lillich]

We spent a wonderful week in Florida in March, and while we were at Ft DeSoto - we saw this gorgeous bird - I think it is a white morph reddish egret - but that is mostly guessing.

anyway - I have a few pictures i would like to clean up of it. I was wondering if someone could give some advice on what to do to make the colors richer, or increase contrast. I overexposed it - so I dropped the exposure overall about a half stop, and cropped it in LR. Then in PS I did some shadows/highlights, and NR and sharpening in NIK filters.


I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone might have on ways to improve it!

Nikon d300, 200-400 f/4 at 280 mm, 1/3200 sec at f 6.3 iso 800 (I still find it hard to remember to check everything - iso, plus/minus comp, aperture etc --- so much to remember! wish i had turned the iso down though, and bumped the fstop up....)

[William Malacarne]

Pat

To my eye it looks ok...I did try darkening the water just a tad and that may do what you are looking for. Also if this was cropped at all you might try leaving a little more room at the bottom for the virtual feet.

Bill

[Lance Peters]

Hi Pat - I would start with setting a black and white point - then you could try darkening the BG a little - many different ways to approach.
Be careful with your selection around those plumes as the change in brightness in the BG will really stand out here if not done well.

Agree with the need for more room at the bottom for the virtual feet.
Hope to see a repost with the change s:)

[Fabs Forns]

I think the proper sun angle (sun behind you) may have been more becoming to the white/blue palette. Side like can be very beaching, but it is very tricky to use.

[Alfred Forns]

Great suggestions Pat It is a white morph and always a treat to photograph !!! .. you should see in full breeding plumage !!! Spectacular !!!

First thing I would note is the light angle, rear of bird looks sort of dark !!! You did well with exposure and whites ... remember the virtual feet, a bit tight at the bottom !!

[pat lillich]

Hi Fabs - yes you are right. It has all been a great learning experience - and we understand much better about positioning ourselves more correctly in relationship to the light now. Funny, its only been a few months, but I look at these pictures from March and see so much I know to do differently now. Great excuse to have to go back to Florida again to take more pictures!!!

hey Bill - I started trying to darken the water in various ways and definitely liked how that improved it. Then I read Lance's comment about setting the black and white points. Looked on line and found a brief discussion of that and tried it - wow! It darkened the water, and got rid of the yellow cast in the bird. I also went back and added the little I had below the reflection of the legs ---- it is an unattractive part of the bird's reflection - but it does make the bird feel taller. I've selected and deselected his head feathers so much that i don't want to do that again for awhile - boy - you can really see the affect the NIK sharpening filter has on noise - i had to redo that several times because it makes such a strong delineation between sharpened and unsharpened. I do like this better - but looking at the two, the bill is darker than i remember, and I think I lost some texture in the neck and back.

but thank you all - this was great learning. now i'll go look see if by some miracle i took a picture of him from a better light angle and see what happens when i try to clean it up...

[pat lillich]

Alfred - thank you - I'd love to see him in breeding plumage - he (she?) was a lot of fun to watch, very active and animated as they fished.... hopefully we will have a chance to go back and try again - because I don't think I have a single picture from a more correct angle. And you are right, and i've made it even worse, the back end is even darker now. i think it will wait till tomorrow now, but i can go back into LR and try to apply a little positive exposure to the back of the bird - maybe....? and maybe this time thru the process i can prevent the bill from going quite so dark.

[Bill Dix]

Beautiful bird. Would love to see one up close like this. Good suggestions above: virtual feet, sun angle, white and black points, etc., all good advice. Repost is an improvement. Tough to work the bg around those plumes, as Lance pointed out. I haven't figured that one out yet, although Denise says Topaz has a mask product that works well. Bill looks like too much contrast in the repost. (Sometimes when I make a change like that on a layer, I use the eraser selectively at low opacity to mitigate the changes in places that look too harsh.)

[Don Lacy]

Hi Pat, Is this what you had in mine . All i did was used a S curve and layer mask to apply it to the BG and I then reduced Brightness on another layer and used a mask to aplly it to water.

[pat lillich]

Hey Don,

that is more natural looking, and less harsh than what I had tried. And much better for the bill. Thank you! I will pull down the original from LR with the additional legroom and try this with it- I really appreciate the suggestions - I'm learning a lot!