Northern Flicker

[Alma K Bailey]

This stunning flicker hung around all day waiting for bugs to come out of the chimmney.
HAnd held
f8@1/500
300 mm
ISO 400

All comments are appreciated and welcome. Thank you for looking in.

[Phil Ertel]

That is one cold looking bird looks; all puffed up sitting in the snow. A tough one to expose with the bird in bright snow. The snow looks pretty good but this has left the bird a bit dark. Exposing for the bird would have resulted in over exposed snow. Fill flash would have been your friend in this situation. A bit of dodging of the bird or perhaps a shadow/highlight adjustment might also help make the bird stand out more. The background is a little busy for my taste but the branches help show the snowy environment.

As an example to demonstrate lightening the bird, I use a dodge/burn layer to lighten the bird. I then added a curves layer to lighten the bird a bit more (perhaps too much?) and add back in some contrast. I also painted over the bigger brown leaves as they drew my attention away from the bird and lightened the branch the bird is sting on so the tail stands out more. I cropped a little tighter as I thought the bird was a little small and lost in all of the branches.

I leave it up to you as if these edits help or hurt the image. You could of course do a better job of it with the original and a little more time and care.

Thanks for sharing.

[Jeff Parker]

Tough situation you've got there. Busy, busy background and a lot of contrast.

If you shoot in RAW the fill light slider in ACR will help with brightening the bird.

[Alma K Bailey]

Dear Phil, Wow, is what I am saying, first I never though of the burn tool, so I must now go play around with it. I also see the dark left coner, so much nicer, softened.. And the bright bird. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.. I appreciate all good advice.


Jeff, I must admit you are so right, for some reason I have held back in shooting in RAW, but now I am seeing the advantage in it for my PS.. Thank you for this info also..

I am looking forward to coming in more and become a part of BPN, as the site I was on has shut down, so sad they were a great group of photographers and friends..

[Alma K Bailey]