Downy Woodpecker

[Emily Norman]

I was excited to finally get a shot of this Downy in a tree by my house - he was an infrequent visitor to my feeder and I never seemed to be ready when he came by. I was able to get much closer to him that I ever had before, and he didn't seem to mind at all. There were actually 2 Downys in this tree but I couldn't get a good shot of them together.

Nikon d7000 70-300mm @ 220mm, f 7.1, SS 1/640, ISO 1000, no flash, very overcast day

PP: sharpening on bird with noise reduction on bg, almost full frame crop from horizontal. I also toned some of the highlights on the perch. I struggled a bit with composition here - I'm wondering if the bird should be over to a side rather than in the center. I cropped it this way to avoid some distracting twigs which could be cloned if need be. Comments and critiques appreciate - I've already learned a lot from my last post!

[John Chardine]

Hi Emily- This is an attractive image. I like the crop as is. The image seems well balanced. Sharpness is good and I like the background. Great eye contact. The aspect that jumped out when I looked at the image first was that is seemed a bit washed out and undersaturated. This can be solved by adding some saturation to the image and maybe a Levels adjustment. Nicely done.

[Joel Eade]

I agree with John's critique, everything is nice about this image except it is understaurated. What i notice before reading John's post is that the red crest should be much more red.
Very easily fixed and you did a great job getting close to this little guy.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Hi Emily,

Nice one, agree with comments above and easy fixes. The composition or in this case placement could be more to one side but works fine as posted. Of course, this is subjective. I once read that on verts, a good rule of thumb is: 1/3 perch, 1/3 bird and 1/3 background. Anyway, an interesting point of reference.

Nice job getting the shot, I have a few Downey's in the area, they travel together and are beautiful to watch. Thanks for posting and keep em coming.

[Marina Scarr]

Lovely pose on this Downy, Emily, and love that "claw." The perch works well, as does your BG.

My eyes are telling me there is a slight greenish cast to your whites in this bird. I brought it into PS, selected the bird only and took out all yellow and green. Then I added red to only the bird's crest. I think it was a slight improvement. I would also consider a tad more sharpening.

[Paul Guris]

In addition to the comments about the red, I think I might sneak the contrast up on this one a bit to make the black/white plumage pop a little. I really like the weathered perch with the bits of lichen on it.

FYI, the red across the entire top of the head indicates that this is a juvenile bird. That may have been why you were able to get so close. The adults tend to be a bit more wary and alert than the kids.

[Cody Covey]

The biggest problem is the white balance I think. THere is a slight blue cast in there. I took it to Lightroom and warmed it up with the temp slider and added a bit of saturation vibrance and sharpening to the image as seen below.



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[Emily Norman]

Thank you all so much for you critiques! I hadn't even considered upping the contrast/saturation but I think it really helps. Makes the bird "pop" a little more. Thank you Cody for posting your version, I like the warmth that the white balance adjustment created. Re: the sharpness, I just read that I may need to be re-sharpening after I resize for the web - It looked much sharper before I cropped it down. Does that sound right?

Once again, I really appreciate all of your advice and feel that I'm already learning so much here!

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Emily, please include as much technical info as possible relating to your posted image. It helps us understand the circumstances of the capture and processing.

I really like your composition and head angle, not easy to do with the woodpeckers! I can't get them to look at me at all... Nice catch by Cody on the color, just a tad bluish. One thing I really like about a good wp capture is the nice view of the tail and how it is used to stabilize. Good job!

[gail bisson]

Hi Emily,
I really like the vertical comp. The lichen on the branch is lovely too. Great BG too. There are lots of tutorials on sharpening for the web here as it is very important . I do like the image better with a little more contrast and saturation. I bought Art Morris' Digital Basics and I find in incredibly helpful. I actually have each page in one of those plastic sheets for binders because I use it so much! I was tearing the pages from flipping them back and forth so much!
Gail
One tip of Artie's that I love is to go to selective color in CS5 and add 2 points to the blacks and 2 points to the neutrals. It always seems to make the picture pop.

[Marina Scarr]

Thank you all so much for you critiques! I hadn't even considered upping the contrast/saturation but I think it really helps. Makes the bird "pop" a little more. Thank you Cody for posting your version, I like the warmth that the white balance adjustment created. Re: the sharpness, I just read that I may need to be re-sharpening after I resize for the web - It looked much sharper before I cropped it down. Does that sound right?

Once again, I really appreciate all of your advice and feel that I'm already learning so much here!

Hi Emily:

After I work on the RAW image, I bring it into CS5 and make all the adjustments, except for sharpening. I save it in TIFF. From that image, I convert to sRGB for the web, rezize for my post and the last thing I do is sharpen after the resizing.

Hope this helps.

[Emily Norman]

Marina, thank you sooo much for that tip! I will make sure I follow the same pattern for my next post. I had been sharpening first and then cropping, etc. which I think degraded the image somewhat. Gail, I think I'll order a copy of that book today! Thanks for your comments!

[Troy Lim]

Emily, good shot indeed, with a bit of more PP, it would be even better than what it is now.
Composition wise, I would like to see more room on the right, the bird is just too centered in the shot.