Drake Gadwall in February

[Stan Cunningham]

Drake Gadwall in February in a Phoenix AZ urban lake.
Canon 7D, 100-400 5.6L, 400mm, ISO 400, F8 at 1/2000
No crop, increased brightness, increased green and yellow hue and saturation in Lightroom, Think I may have over done it trying to pull out the color of cattail reflection on the water.
CC welcome and hoped for.
Stan

[Sid Garige]

Stan,

Nice composition. May be just a little more space on the left.

One issue I see here is the quality of light. Looks like you had to deal with some harsh light conditions. Assuming you used evaluative metering it kind of under exposed the bird. Light room more image oriented and any changes we make it applies those changes on whole image. ON the other hand photoshop gives us an opportunity work on specific part of the image and keeping the rest intact. I would open the image in photshop and selectively work on bird alone with out altering the background and foreground exposure. See if it works.

-Sid

[John Chardine]

Hi Stan- Agree with Sid, some fill light in Adobe Camera Raw would open up the bird against the bright BG. The BG colours are stunning. Agree as well that some more room at the rear would be a good idea. I would tighten the crop above and to the right as well.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Stan, you had a good thought with the capture here - just caught the bird a little early so it's close to the left edge. Your exposure on the bird is quite good but the background is much brighter than the bird and pretty much overwhelms it. Remember that adding saturation can make your colors clip even when the luminance does not. Good point by John on the crop, you could help minimize the bright background by cropping from the top right.

[Stan Cunningham]

Followed every one's instructions, but it's late and I'm not a good judge right now.
re cropped as it wasn't my bad aim Kerry, but I was trying to show the area to be travelled to, think this may be more pleasing.
Did not use the Saturation or Hue at all, rather selected the bird in PS and added some brightness and curves to lighten him.
Added some fill light in RAW John, but like Lightroom I don't know how to select just the bird so didn't want to overdo it.
Thanks a bunch guys and please keep the comments and HELP coming.
Stan

[Sid Garige]

Great improvement compared to original Stan. Excellent job.

[Kerry Perkins]

Did not use the Saturation or Hue at all, rather selected the bird in PS and added some brightness and curves to lighten him.
Added some fill light in RAW John, but like Lightroom I don't know how to select just the bird so didn't want to overdo it.
Stan

Stan, I'm a little confused because you said "increased green and yellow hue and saturation in Lightroom". Then you said you selected the bird in PS. :2

At any rate, the re-post looks much nicer. Giving space for the bird to swim into is fine, I was just suggesting that a little more space on the left would have been nice and the crop from the right helps to tame the background a bit. Good work on the re-do!

[Stan Cunningham]

Kerry, I went back and got the original. If I get a good shot I create a virtual copy in lightroom and only do processing on one. So the 2nd image I just went straight to Camera Raw and into photoshop after adding some fill light. I didn't add any saturation to the bkgrnd this time. I definitely got heavy handed the first time, need to remember what a pro landscape photographer told me this winter, that our touch ups should be like brushes, not hammers.
Stan

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks Stan, I understand! Nice job on the second one.