Hunting Egret

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L
1/2500sec f/6.3 ISO 400


S/H, sharpening in CS5
NR on BG in Noiseware Pro

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Ian, you got a nice behavior shot with the intense hunting - good catch! Good feather detail and color rendition with the exception of the very blue shadow on the right side. I would crop away the pile of sticks in the LRC. I think the composition would still be fine, as you have a pretty tight crop on the top also. I'm having a tough time telling for sure, does it need a slight CCW rotation?

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Kerry. I got rid of the gunk and I did a little CCW. As for the blue, it doesn't really bother me, but I'm not sure how I'd get rid of it.

How's this?

[Kerry Perkins]

Very nice Ian. I think this is a much cleaner look. I did a very quick fix on the blue, it's not that hard in PS. First I used the sponge tool set on "desaturate" at 20% and went over the blue until it was mostly gray. Then I used a brush with the mode set to "color", sampled a mid-tone area of the whites for the color, then painted it into the shadow area. Like I said, I did this really quickly and ended up with a bit of a black halo, but if I had been more careful this fix would be pretty much transparent.

[Ian Cassell]

Wow, Kerry, thanks for taking the time for this. Yes, it definitely looks better with the blue toned down.

[Stan Cunningham]

Nice compostion Ian.
Love the yellow foot just exposed and the intense look.