Bringing in the nesting materials

[Don Nelson]

Taken during Klamath Falls Winter Wings at the row of trees Artie mentioned previously, just inside the California border with Oregon.
Fortunately it was snowing early in the morning - just clearing before this, with the sky as a big soft box.
Canon 1DMkIV,400mm DO, 1.4x III extender, ISO 800, 1/3200, f/7.1,800, EV +1 1/3, hand held, focus distance 47.1m

[Don Nelson]

OOPs forgot the final sharpening! Here's an update

[Arthur Morris]

Pane 2 is quite wonderful. I love the framing and the close to SQ crop. I would love a thin black frame around this one for web presentation.

[Dave Leroy]

I really like the pose and composition. Timing is right on.

Also well done on the field exposure and or post processing. Tough to get the whites and dark wings at same time.

Dave

[Daniel Cadieux]

Good wingspread, and great firm grip on the branch. I agree a thin black border for web presentation would help us define the comp limits more easily with this high-keyish image.

[Art Kornienko]

Wish the large branch was not touching the wing. Love the wing positioning, a very strong capture.

[Don Nelson]

Repost - thanks Artie for suggestion of black border, and thanks Daniel for tips on easy method. I appreciate all the comments. (note that one other change was to use Nix Sharpener Pro 3.0 using default settings for display....first time I've tried this one; usually I use Artie's suggestions in Digital Basics -- thanks Artie for all your hard work in putting this together--its helped me to better utilize the tools)

[Arthur Morris]

Don, You are most welcome. This one keeps getting better and better. For Art, with a few Quick Masks and some Clone Stamp Tool work.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: I am wondering if I made the branch too short....

[Don Nelson]

Wow. Thanks Artie for the post. Looks great!

[Art Kornienko]

Branch looks good to me, not too short.

[Daniel Cadieux]

You're welcome Don, and I agree with Artie that this image is getting better and better!! I like the branch pruning idea.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks all. The trick with branch shortening it to create a Quick Mask of the end of the branch, move the layer out of the way, use the Clone Stamp Tool to trim the branch, then move the end of the branch layer into place and fine-tune (using a Layer Mask).

All as described in detail in Digital Basics and APTATS I. Digital Basics was just updated and now includes a section on Layer Masking for Dummies.

[Enrique Patino]

The feather detail is much improved starting in pane #7, but the eye looks wrong to me... at least in my monitor. Also, the head looks flattened given the white bckgnd.... a novice opinion!

[Wendy Griffiths]

Thanks all. The trick with branch shortening it to create a Quick Mask of the end of the branch, move the layer out of the way, use the Clone Stamp Tool to trim the branch, then move the end of the branch layer into place and fine-tune (using a Layer Mask).

All as described in detail in Digital Basics and APTATS I. Digital Basics was just updated and now includes a section on Layer Masking for Dummies.

Some of the images in this forum are AMAZING and this one is no exception

Artie, your digital basics book - does that cover the rules for dummies using nikon gear and lightroom. I'm a newbie and just starting to try my hand at post-processing.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Wendy, Digital Basics is based on my workflow (that does not include Lightroom). Everything in it works well with Nikon. Most Nikon folks find BreezeBrowser best for selecting their keepers. Converting images in Photoshop's ACR as I do and describe is virtually identical to converting them in Lightroom or Aperture. If you do not add Photoshop, preferably CS-5 to your line-up, you will be severely handicapped when it comes to optimizing your images. You could not, for example, do the branch repairs in Lightroom. Same for tons more.....

Thanks for your kind words about the boys and girls' images :)

[Arthur Morris]

The feather detail is much improved starting in pane #7, but the eye looks wrong to me... at least in my monitor. Also, the head looks flattened given the white bckgnd.... a novice opinion!

Enrique, The small changes that you see with your eagle eye are a result of saving and re-saving a JPEG.... That is not recommended as JPEG is a lossy file type. It is the best that we can do here. The trick is that the original posted should go back and make the recommended changes on their master files.

[Don Nelson]

Actually, Artie, pane 7 was TIF(intermediate saved previously before resizing to 800 pixel sized image) --> jpeg.
Your changes in Pane 8 were definitely JPG->JPG
The only changes in pane 7:
1) framing lines added prior to resizing down to smaller image size.
2) Output sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro 3.0 using only the display settings defaults.
Thanks for all your edits!