darkened neutrals and blacks in selective color, cropped a bit in lightroom, NIK detail extractor and sharpening on bird, NR on background.
any suggestions on how to improve the image greatly appreciated.
thanks Charles, I've been trying Tonal contrast on darker areas, and detail extractor for the very light ones. I'll try both again and see how they look different.
Troy - the sun was actually rising behind me (but hadn't quite gotten over the hills/trees/freeway overpass behind me yet) - but the water was this gold color - don't know exactly where the light source was. (the earliest pictures in the series are very dark, i can see the light come up over the next few minutes) The snowy was actually down in a little ditch/creek and the ground level was lighter than where the bird was. When I ran the detail extractor filter, i applied a show all layer mask, and then masked out some of the area around the eye, head and the lighter parts of the shoulder to decrease how much it darkened them to try to give the effect of highlights. probably over did it!
The water color is lovely. Head is turned away a bit. I might consider a clone stamp to soften the dark areas in RUC.
Flash def. would have been your friend here.
My overall sense on the processing is that it is just a bit overdone, and I might consider backing off the various effects a bit, letting it go a bit softer.
went back today and took a look at the location. just past where the snowy was standing, the creek/ditch takes a sharp left turn, and just past the bend there is a tan shack . so the gold water is caused by the rising sun on this side of the bird reflecting off the tan building back on to the water on the other side of the bird. Troy - you of course were right, the bird was backlit.
the good thing is that it should occur again as long as the sun is in the same portion of the sky, so if I remember to carry the flash, and the egret chooses to fish there again, I might get another chance to teke the picture more correctly.