harrier hawk at Sachuest NWR Middletown, RI

[annmpacheco]

Canon 7D 100-400mm w lens @400mmLens : 400(mm)
ISO: 400 Aperture: 8 Shutter: 1/1000
cropped and basics in PS5, any suggestions to improve this image? Thanks

[Stuart Hill]

Hi there. Love the image, the colours and the position of the bird in the frame. Is this a large crop? There seems to be some grain in the bkgd so would run NR on it. If one were being really picky I'd clone out the darker area on the right and the very small dark line just left and up from the eye in the background. Did I also mention i like that catch light?

regards.
Stu.

[Julie Kenward]

Good advice by Stuart. It's a beauty, Ann! Congrats on the BIF image and how clear and detailed it is. I would definitely run NR on the BG but not the bird. I'd also clone out that dark area at the right frame edge if you can. You got a beautiful image here - I'd print it and hang it!

[annmpacheco]

Wow, ummmhh really thank you for the kind compliments. I'll need to learn how to run NR on the BG only, sorry I don't know how yet. I think I can clone the dark area. Thanks ann

[Kerry Perkins]

Ann, congratulations on getting this nice flight shot of the female harrier! It is a really nice capture, and the two items mentioned will take it over the top for you. In addition to noise reduction, you could use a levels adjustment on the bg to bring it down a bit. This will make the hawk stand out more and add interest to the image.

Doing separations in PS can be pretty tedious, but I use Topaz ReMask for this job. I have a tutorial on this in Out Of The Box here - http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/78280-Topaz-ReMask-Tutorial
Please click on the links to see the images. You can download a trial version of the plug-in from the Topaz Labs website. If you prefer to do this in PS, it involves using the selection tools (magic wand is the first choice) to select the bird, then making a new layer from your selection. Now you can selectively apply noise reduction to the background layer and sharpening to the bird only.

[John Chardine]

I would be absolutely tickled with an image like this. Agree with the comments. For me all it needs is a little NR and a touch of sharpening. For the wall I would de-emphasise the dark OOF object on the right. Very well done Ann.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nailed the eye and great pose - would leverage John's suggestions - TFS.

[LeeFortier]

Excellent capture. I'd be thrilled just to get this close to a Harrier.

The consensus seems to be to clean up the noise in the BG. I have to agree.
Otherwise, - leave it alone.

[Craig Markham]

Ann, this is such a lovely image -- an especially fine result using your 100-400. I agree with the comments expressed above; selective noise reduction for the BG would give it a more silky texture to contrast with the bird. Be absolutely sure to keep your unedited original image, and do work only on copies. As you increase your post-production editing/optimizing skills, and as technologies improve, you may want to revisit this image -- its a real treasure. I like Nik Software's Dfine 2.0 for selective NR (it is an add-on program that works with PS and Lightroom). Sometimes I use it just to slightly soften BG details and textures, NR notwithstanding.

The Harrier's body position, catchlight, light direction, color/textural combination and position in the frame are superb. I'm enjoying just sitting here and taking it all in.

Craig

[Sachin Saraf]

Hey Ann,

If you have PS5 you can do it very easily.
1. select the Hawk
2. Select > Inverse Selection
3. Filter > Blur > Surface Blur
4. Apply Radius and Threshold to your liking and you will get the expected result.

You may try it on a separate layer.