Yellow wagtail

[Richard Stern]

Hi,

This Yellow wagtail was in the Gredos Mtns on my recent trip to Spain. Cropped, bird selectively sharpened, eye lightened, and background blurred. I'm not sure what to do about the bg - especially the large black area to the right of the head - should it be left, cloned out, or dealt with in some other way, and if so how?.

D7000, 300 f/4 AF-S+1.4TC, 1/2000, f/8.0, ISO 500

Thanks for looking,

Richard

[Ulli Hoeger]

Hi Richard,

I would even crop the image just a bit more.
Since you already blurred the BG I would clone out the black blob before the blurring step.

Other than that not much to do differently in my opinion

Ulli

[Gerald Kelberg]

Very pretty little bird this, Richard. And they don't stand still for long either! Those yellows can be tricky but you have them nicely under control.

Yes, the black blobs have to go! You should find it easy enough to Quickmask some patches and them move them into position - overlay them on different levels, vary the opacity and play around with eraser and clone at low opacities until you get the effect you want. The attached is a suggestion, but I think you will also want to get rid of some of the dark areas closer to the bird itself - which requires some careful "select and defend" as I think Artie calls it.

Skeptical at first, but tried Ulli's suggestion of a slightly closer crop and felt it worked. But not essential.

[Kerry Perkins]

Richard, nice capture and lovely little bird. I absolutely love the way the background compliments the colors of the bird! Excellent! Gerald answered your question about what to do with the black blobs, nice work there. My only other suggestions would be to sharpen a bit more and put a little bit of catchlight in the eye. Nicely done!

[John Chardine]

Nice Richard and great to see this species! Nice and sharp, great eye-level camera angle, great head angle. I like the repost except for the cooler colour tone- I prefer the warmer tone of the OP. If you were going to the trouble of toning-down the dark blobs I would also work on the one behind the head.