Phoebe

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6
1/1250sec f/5.6 ISO 500 HH
Minor crop, S/H, Sharpening, and clone of piece of branch in CS5
NR on BG in Noiseware Pro

[Peter Farrell]

Very nice pose and perch. I like the bg sky color. The bird looks good but the oof objects in the bg are distracting.
Peter

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Peter. I thought the BG was a bit more interesting than plain blue, but I'll try getting rid of that stuff and see how it works.

[Julie Kenward]

I know a plain blue sky is hard to find interesting but I think it will give you a stronger image here than to have all the really OOF branches in the BG, Ian. I love the fluffy look of the bird and it's a nice pose but there's an odd green cast over all of the light brown areas including his feet and bottom of his tail. Was this where you removed the branch? If it is, you might look at going back over those areas with the image highly magnified and see if you can't pull some more of the green areas out. If that's not it then I'd say you have a color cast in the works.

I tried lightening the midtones and found I liked the sky and bird even better but it's a personal choice.

[John Chardine]

Ian- I'm seeing a bit of a cast but I think it is coming from a the warm light. I like the fluffiness too. There's a little softness in the head, maybe because you are looking up at the bird (best to be at eye level if you can) and the head is a bit behind the point of focus. I'm seeing a light halo around the head and shoulders of the bird- looks like some processing artifact.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Ian - agree with the above points- would go back to the original and re process - should make a big improvement.
Or post the original and we will have a look!!
Keep em coming :)

[Julie Brown]

All good advice, so far. I like the pose and the perch. I think it would be interesting if you posted the unprocessed file to see what the moderators would do with it.:)