I like this little guy, nice pose and a sharp image. I find the nail distracting and would probably get rid of that if it were mine. I also would like more room for the little guy, but that is just me. It is always nice to have a good close up and you have one here.
Hi Steve,
Excellent detail, sharp and good pose. Would prefer a natural perch but the weathered look of the fence is nice. Biggest thing for me is the bright BG. Also agree about getting rid of the nail and adding more room on the right. Hope you don't mind but I took a stab at it. Cloned and blended the fence, darkened shadows and used a soft brush to go over some of the brighter areas, applied a surface blur ran NR. Added some canvas on the right Some s/h on bird.
Peter
Peter nailed the composition/crop issue for me. He also got rid of the nail...yippee!
Steve, one thing to ask yourself with each image is 1) is there anything that doesn't add something good to the image and 2) is it easy to get rid of it? If the answers are yes and yes...then I would go with YES! If you are morally against such things that's fine, too, but I figure why not make the image look as nice as it can possibly be without actually altering the bird itself?
Steve- Agree with the above. I would also suggest some eye work. Eyes are usually dark like this one and on a light-toned bird they are often underexposed. In a darkroom you could dodge the eye to lighten it up a little and you can do the same thing in Photoshop. If you shoot RAW, you can add a little fill light which would lighten up the darker-toned areas. Then in Ps you could use the dodge tool and subtly lighten the eye. If this process lightens the pupil too much you can darken than up with the burn tool. If all this brings out noise in the eye you can use a small, soft blur tool to remove it. Eye work like this can really improve an image.
White-breasted Nuthatch
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