HELP or should I even continue?

[Stan Cunningham]

Things I like about the pic is the sharp image of the bear and it's reflection, and the view of the surrounding area including mountain with snow.
Things I def don't like is the blue tint of the mtns, the ripples of the sand poking through the water, and the harsh light on the bears back.
Not sure it's salvageable, and def not with out some advice.
Canon 5D2, 70 - 200 2.8 at 190, ISO 250, F8 at 1/1000

Processing includes a slight crop and I did reduce quite a bit of the blue tint using curves in LAB, but I'm new to this methodology.
If you don't think it's worth it, I can understand, but if you have some suggestions I sure try it.
Thanks
Stan

[Charles Glatzer]

Stan,

You can easily select the mts within your image with the Quick Selection tool, thereafter use a Saturation Adjustment layer to modify the mts to your liking.
The ripples do not bother me, however the intersection of the dark forepaw with the head I find problematic. The image appears very chunky, almost like the sharpening radius was set to high, but this could be fixed as well.

Best,

Chas

[Arthur Morris]

Yes to mega over-sharpening and a good point by Chas about the merge of the forepaw with the snout. A Linear Burn on the bear's back should easily restore density and detail.... While the bear's back does not look over-exposed the breasts of the gulls do look hot..... How did you meter?

[Arthur Morris]

I meant to ask, is this Silver Salmon Creek Lodge?

[Steve Canuel]

Hi Stan,
Nowhere near the experience, knowledge, or artistic eye of the two previous posters but here an opinion from someone who enjoys looking at wildlife photos. I love the inclusion of habitat here and the colors of the mountains look okay to me. I suppose you could darken them to taste and still retain a realistic cool look of shaded mountains. The sand peaks in the water are a little more problematic for me as it gives the overall image a "gritty" look but given the habitat, they aren't much of an issue for me either. Biggest problem for me would be the dark paw/head merge mentioned by Chas.

p.s. Thanks for the info on the collars from Rachel's post. How long do the batteries typically last?

[Stan Cunningham]

Thanks guys for all of the feedback and I think I really improved the image.
First, yes Art that's Silver Salmon and Dave, Joann, and Oliver have done a tremendous amount of improvements and doing a great business. As a bear biologist, I think their operation is exemplarary, and I've heard the same about the 2 operations off Katmai, one of which you participate with.
I went back to the RAW file, and stayed the heck out of LAB, it did what I wanted on portions of the pic, but ruined other parts. I need a lot more experimentation with it obviously. And I did have the radius set too high and no little sharpening has been applied and I don't see it's needed.
Chas, I used a quick mask on the Mtns and Robert O'toole's color cast removal with curves outlined in Art's digital basics and got as close as I think I can get to what the mtns really looked like late that morning. I removed most of the birds but left one small group. I was point metering on the bear, the histogram does not show any clipping but I see why you think the birds were "hot".
With respect the dark forepaw and head I did some adjustments on the eyes using quickmasks and some real zoomed in dodging to try and seperate her head from the paw as much as possible. Any more and it just looked too unrealistic. I think my methodologies were good, just don't believe too much more can be done in that small area and keep it realistic looking.
If you have some more comments and suggestions on the repost I'd be glad to try.
Thanks again.

[Marc Mol]

The repost is a big improvement Stan, a classic animalscape setting. Could do with some selective sharpening on the bear and gulls.
TFS

[Arthur Morris]

Yes, the repost is much better, and yes, a contrast mask to sharped only the bear would help. Given the harsh light you did well but for these types of image some nice light helps tremendously.