Blending in...

[Brendan Dozier]

I liked how this bird (need ID) blended in with the orange and gray of the tree. Thought it had nice balance visually between bird & environment. Decided to include habitat for this reason, and not do tight crop. ACR, PP, vert. crop, touched up some spots in BG.

7D, EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM +2.0x
hand-held
1/80
8.0
ISO 500

C & C welcome & appreciated,

- Brendan

[Desmond Chan]

Interesting ! Foreground, main subject, and background...like a typical landscape shot I like the leaves in the foreground as they (especially they overlap with some of the branches and part of the bird) give a sense of 3-D to the image. There seems to be some OOF leaves (on the left) blocking part of the head of the bird? If this were mine, I would crop either some from the top or the bottom just to move the bird away from the center of the entire photo. And I likely would also adjust the brightness of some parts of the photo to help the viewer focus easier on the bird. But, that may not be what you want as you rather let the bird blend in better with the environment Overall, I think this photo looks a bit flat and so could use some contrast enhancement, IMO.

[Stu Bowie]

Brendan, cant help with the ID, but I do like the pose, detail and colours on the little guy. Comp wise, I do agree with Desmond to maybe move him up in the frame, by cropping off at least two thirds of the top. With regards to making this pop a little more, I would just play with the BG, with a touch of saturation and contrast. He cetainly does blend in with the surroundings.

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks Desmond & Stuart, very helpful. It's always a challenge when including habitat, but I think your suggestions make a lot of sense. Cropped off some from top, added more contrast, blurred & darkened upper BG area. Also cloned out a bit of the blurred pine needles from the perch branch.

[Dave Leroy]

I like this one and repost would be my prefernce of the two.

I like the inclusion of habitat.

It always seems that the birds blends in so well with oof bgs.

I would guess ID is some type of finch.

Well done

Dave

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks Dave, and yes, just had it confirmed by Dan Brown as a House Finch.

[DanWalters]

Your image really demonstrates how well they do blend in!

[Dumay de Boulle]

Like the OOF nettles...Colors work nicely together. I think some where between the first and second crop re space above would be better for my taste

[Dan Busby]

Brendan - Very nice HA and pose for this House Finch. Nice to see some habitat too! I think the second version improved some aspects - especially contrast. I also like the crop better. One thing to look at is the artifacts of the selection process for adjustments - note the fine feather detail on the birds back now has fuzziness. It's hard to pick out those fine details in the selection process.

[Brendan Dozier]

Thanks Dan, Dumay & Dan.

Brendan - Very nice HA and pose for this House Finch. Nice to see some habitat too! I think the second version improved some aspects - especially contrast. I also like the crop better. One thing to look at is the artifacts of the selection process for adjustments - note the fine feather detail on the birds back now has fuzziness. It's hard to pick out those fine details in the selection process.

Good eye Dan, I noticed the fuzziness too after posting and did a new version, with a more careful selection, and used Refine Edge in PS.

[Melissa Groo]

This final repost looks fantastic Brendan. I too love the sense of habitat. Wonderful colors.

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose and head turn, from the details it must be a huge crop but nice display in habitat.