Common Loon flapping wings

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Taken at Chequamegon NF, WI.
Canon 30D + 300/f2.8 + 1.4x
F5, 1/600, ISO 400
ACR, CS4, Image represents 40% original image
Curves, Vibrance, saturation, contrast, LAB color to remove greenish cast on wings (Thanks to John Chardine's tutorial)
Sharpened on dSLR fractal sharpen, NR on Neat Image
Does it have a reddish cast after removing the greenish cast?
C&C appreciated.

[Ronald Zigler]

Nice capture Ravi. If I understand correctly, these birds are notoriously shy and difficult to photograph up close. You did well get this image. The body and wings appear sharp, but the eye and head seem a bit softer to me. That may be on account of the distance and the crop factor. Nonetheless, its a great photo to have. Thanks for sharing.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Ravi,

This species is stunning, always makes me pause when I see one. The opportunity for improvement is the large crop and image detail. I would have taken this picture as well, maybe a shot not so tight would restore some of the IQ, you can always give it a try. As Ronald noted, the head is a bit soft probably due to large crop and sensor point of focus. Was this HH, a tripod is helpful in these situations.

Regarding composition, might take a small layer off the bottom and images where wings intersect with the subjects head are alright but usually stronger when they do not. Techs look good, do you have a 2xTC and a tripod - might make the image stronger next time. Well done and again, beautiful subject.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello Ravi, I think your self-assessment is right on the money - lots of red in the image as well as a ton of green in the water. I took the liberty of doing a quick color balance adjustment in CS5, removing a lot of red by moving the cyan/red slider toward cyan. I think the bird looks a lot closer to reality but I'm not sure about the water. I also did some sharpening (Topaz Detail) on the bird and more noise reduction (Topaz DeNoise) on the bg. I was going to suggest cropping a bit from the bottom, but the more I look at it the more I think the crop is ok. Nice work on the capture, I do believe that your camera caught focus a little bit in front of the head, but this bird (as a species) has very fine feathers on the head as well as a dark eye so it is somewhat hard to judge sharpness.

One trick that I use when working on bird images is to use Google to search on the species and then select "images" as the search mode. There will be lots of images of the bird I am working on, and most of them will be pretty good as far as showing the color and general appearance. If my bird looks different, then I go to work...

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Thanks Ronald, Jeff and Kerry for your comments. I like the repost better than OP, but the water is a little too green for me. Ronald, although I was sitting in a blind, the bird kept its distance. Jeff, I had a 2X TC, but I was afraid the image would be too soft if I used it. I need to learn some good techniques with long lenses, as this was my first experience using a rented 300/f2.8 lens. Another problem in getting a sharp picture was that the bird kept moving constantly, so in order to track it, I had to loosen the knob on the tripod head (Gitzo 3530 + RRS BH55 ball head). That may have resulted in a soft image too. And add to it the crop factor. Nevertheless, these birds are just fascinating to watch. I was lucky to get some of these images, especially the wings flapping. Kerry, I am going to use your suggestions to work on my other images. I like the idea of looking at other images of the species to get an idea of what the colors are.

Posting my images on this forum has been a great learning experience for me. I am beginning to understand how to approach an image as far as post-processing. Thank you all for your suggestions.

[Kerry Perkins]

Ravi, I agree - the water is way off. I should have done the bg color separately but I just wanted to correct the bird. It was pretty easy to select just the loon and make a separate layer and I suggest you try that. What was your white balance setting when you captured the image?

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Hi Kerry.
The White balance on the RAW image was Temp 5600 and tint -4, and shot with auto white balance. The original image was a underexposed by 2/3-1 stop. Here is what I did with the above image. In color balance, I increased cyan and blue a little. That took the reddish cast off. The wings still has a faint greenish cast, but barely noticeable. I also selectively sharpened the eye. This probably comes close to what I have in my mind as I saw it.Thanks for your suggestions and rework.