Male Goosander

[Svante Larsson]

Nikon D300, 500 mm with TC 1.7x, ISO 400, 1/60 sec, f/6.7, spot metering with exp bias +1 EV, fill flash.

This is from the same hole in the ice as the earlier swan. Getting the exposure right for this bird is really difficult and I think this is my best effort even though the head was quite dark in the original image (and the white on the body only a little blown which was easily fixed in Lightroom).

However when lightening the head (and the eye) one starts to see some noise making it difficult to sharpen it to much. Would really appreciate some ideas on how to improve the handling of this image (including the exposure) together with the usual C&C.

[Richard Unsworth]

Hi

Bear with me as I have not processed someone elses image before

Loaded your jpeg in camera raw applied a little clarity, and saturation to add color.
Then ran NR on the background in PS5, inverted selection and ran USM on bird.
Adjusted shadows/highlights
Selective sharpened jpeg, recropped and resized to reposition bird

what do you think

[Svante Larsson]

Hej Richard

Significant improvement even though I think the body and the breast is now a bit dark/yellowish. This is what the original image looked like.

[Richard Unsworth]

Indeed I applied a little too much saturation rerun from original without adjusting color