Cardinal

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Sony A700~Sony 70-400G@400mm~ISO 1000~1/1000sec~F5.6~manual exposure~overcast~HH~ 3-23-2010~Brazos Bend State Park, Texas~CS4/Redfield Fractalius Comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

my website

[Richard Lovison]

William,

Even with the tight crop I like the composition. Beautiful pose. The Frac effect is well done. It"s nicely done as a high key image though if it were mine, I might try a bit more color saturation in the bird.

Richard

[Brendan Dozier]

That is a nice looking back pose Bill, and nice high key image. I'm wondering if this would look good with that illustrated treatement you gave your last cardinal post.

[denise ippolito]

Bill, I love the high key look to the image. The filtering is very well done. Excellent pose and perch! Love the raised crest.

[Kerry Perkins]

Wonderful treatment and pose Bill. I love the amount of light in this image, and although I sometimes wish for more saturation in some of your images I think the de-saturated look works well with this one. I really like that look-back pose.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Appreciate the comments. In this image I tried increasing saturation, and did to a certain degree. However, increasing saturation had the effect of reducing the appearance of the fine lines created by fractalius, so I had to back off. This is the case with many of these images- the lighter they are the more you notice the thin black lines supplied by fractalius. These lines gives the image a lithograph or etching appearance. Darken the image and the lines become much less visible, and you have something similar to a regular photograph. regards~Bill

[Richard Lovison]

Bill,

I hope you don't mind that I did a re-post of your image. It's not to offer a rendition that I feel is better than yours (actually, I still prefer your high-key image) nor to persuade you to change the way you wish to present your image. I'm only doing this to show you that there is a way to preserve your frac lines and increase your saturation if you desire to do so. I used the "tonal contrast" filter by Nik to achieve the result below. I find I use this filter more than any other in most of my post processing.

[WIlliam Maroldo]

Thanks Richard. Good job and a definite improvement. I had planned on purchasing NIK Color Effex Pro, and actually the complete collection, but the economy in Houston, and the line of work I am in, has cratered, so I'll have to wait. Tonal contrast is part of color effex pro, isn't it? regards~Bill

[Richard Lovison]

Tonal contrast is part of color effex pro, isn't it? regards~Bill

Yes, and unfortunately, only part of the complete edition which is the most expensive.

Richard

[Christopher Miller]

Excellent pose and high-key look, Bill. I like the somewhat desaturated look of the OP, though Richard's repost is also very good. I might sharpen the head and crest a tad; the details in that area just doesn't look quite as defined as the rest of the cardinal. Very nicely done.