Alert the head angle police

[Mack Hicks]

Golden fronted woodpecker, male

Mate of the female poster earlier this week. Not the classic head angle, but it shows off the coloration of the head well, yellow at the base of the bill, red crown, and orange nape of the neck. Also get to see his golden front.
D700 500 f/4 ISO 800 1/400 f.6.3 -1/3 EV

The perch is a six inch log about 5 feet high mounted in a plastic Xmas tree stand. (If you buy them the day after Xmas, they are pretty reasonable.) The log has been drilled with various sized holes for suet, seed, and in this case, raw peanuts. I noticed the woodpeckers on this log, which was away from my set up so I moved it closer to the blind. It was set a little too close to the background, which could be quieter. I moved it a bit later in the morning, but the woodpecker did not pose as nicely.

The red crown is a bit bright, should I selectively desaturation the reds a bit?

[Arthur Morris]

Howdy JM, Excellent self-critique. I like the had angle and the orientation of the bird to the imaging sensor for the same reasons that you so, especially the nice look at the orange marmalade patch on the rear crown. The reds look fine from here. I have two ideas for this image. Be right back.

[Arthur Morris]

If it were mine, this is what I would do. Did a lot besides the crop and BKGR smoothing (mostly with a 60 Clone Stamp Tool).

Let see how many of the others you folks can come up with :)

[Daniel Cadieux]

The new comp really improves this image quite a bit. I see a few of the other things Artie did, but will keep quiet in the hopes others will chime in.

Nice feeding behaviour you got Mack, and I like that you are experimenting with setups...lots of fun.

[Humberto Ramos]

Agree with Artie, visually its much better with the crop and BG retouch...

[jack williamson]

Mack, I like the angle of the perch and bird, colors look good. Arthur's crop and bkgr look better, and he

has made the eye clearer and the face is brighter.

Jack

[Dan Busby]

Also, removal of the white highlights behind the bird really helped.

[Mack Hicks]

Thanks to you all for your comments. I do like the improvements. Thanks particularly to you Artie, for the nice lesson. The subtleties really do make a big difference.

[Arthur Morris]

You are welcome Mark. Thanks BTW for your membership support :)