Joel, you did a wonderful job on exposure here. The blacks and the whites are both in line - nothing blocked or blown. That, in itself, it very good. You've also got a wonderful pose, good HA, nice catchlight...all very strong.
My one "negative" and it's very minor is that the BG so closely matches both the beak and the stump that they seem to almost blend into one another. You might try selecting the BG only and then open a hue/saturation layer and push the hue around a bit and see if you can find something that would pop it against the beige tones of the beak and branch. I think a pale blue would look really nice if you can push it that far.
Nicely seen overall - very clean and clear image of a very small bird.
The background is a set of woods about 50 yds back, this time of year everything is gray in Kentucky.....the 300mm 2.8 makes great bokeh, very smooth but I see your point about the color....I'll see if I can make any improvement.
I was veryl happy with the sharpness and exposure on this one, didn't need much processing really.
Downy Woodpecker
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