Brown Pelican Juvenile

[Cheryl Slechta]

I used curves, H&S, and USM on this juvenile. I wasn't sure on the crop - I had room on all sides if need be. I liked the complimenting colors in the water.
Canon 7D, 100-400L IS, 1/640, f/6.3, ISO 200, tripod.

Thanks for looking. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Nice moment in nature, the water provides a complimentary background and reflects the colors of the sky - light looks good. Clean, bright eye and sharp detail. Water drops a plus and HA is spot on. You have him looking into the long side of the frame - like it as presented.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Cheryl, nice job with the pelican. Exposure and color look good and nice composition. I would vote for a little bit more sharpening. Good job!

[Gordon McKechnie]

Agree with all the comments above about all the aspects that work well on this - very nice picture. Also would vote for a bit more sharpening, and it might just be my monitor but the front of the pelican looks just a tad too bright for my preference

[Cheryl Slechta]

Thanks, Jeff, Kerry and Gordon. Here's a repost with a bit more sharpening (I never seem to be able to bring myself to sharpen as much as I should) I think the repost addresses Gordon's comment on the front also.

[Marina Scarr]

Hi Cheryl:

I have taken the liberty of working on your picture. You seem to have oversharpened your repost. Here's what I did. I took a little off the bottom to help the composition a bit. I added some reds to the bird and then blue to it's bill and face area. I also add just the slightest bit of sharpening to just the bill and eye area.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Marina, thanks so much for taking the time to work on this for me. I appreciate it and like your repost. How do you decide when to add or adjust color? I'm new to CS5 and haven't had time to experiment with selective color, etc. Is it something you do with each image? Thanks again for your help.

[Marina Scarr]

How do you decide when to add or adjust color?

There is no correct answer to that question. I like my pictures to have a little bit of pop, as far as color. I usually like my subjects to pop more than the backgrounds, unless a BG is very important to the image. (Take a look at thee repost of Ken's Spotted Sandpiper as an example.) If your BG here had been so blue as to overpower the bird, I may have decreased the blues in just the water a tad. Every picture is different.

I'm new to CS5 and haven't had time to experiment with selective color, etc. Is it something you do with each image?

In this image, I used saturation. I increased just the reds on the body a little bit b/c that tends to make browns pop. I used a little bit of blue only saturation just on the face area. It may not be to your liking, though. Feel free to take an image and do a little experimenting with your saturation sliders. Don't use JUST the master slider, try the different color sliders in the drop down menu so that you can see how the different colors affect your picture. You'll be surprised what you see and learn. It's good to develop a workflow that works for you, but you don't always have to follow it and each picture is totally different.

Have fun while you're learning!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Marina, thanks