Black Phoebe

[P-A. Fortin]

Taken at the Sepulveda Basin, CA, at a spot where I was advised to never return alone

Definitely not the greatest background ever, but I asked the bird to visit my backyard at home and he declined the invitation.

One of my first decent images of a small bird that did not involve cropping out 90% of the image. The bird really seemed to ignore my presence, which surprised me because his Northeastern cousins are rather... well, I've never seen one long and close enough for a positive ID.

Canon 60D, 100-400mm @ 400mm, f/8, 1/640, manual. f/8 is definitely not good here, but the bird arrived while I was trying to photograph a group of sandpipers and it seems I forgot to open up to f/5.6 when the phoebe arrived. It was my 2nd hour of manual shooting ever and I guess this was too much for my brain.

Crop is about 65% of the original, for composition mostly (Bird was too centered, although I have to admit that I am not 100% sure about this crop either).
NR on the background and sharpening on the bird (Smart sharpen, 150%, 0.25) in PS5.

[Jeff Cashdollar]

PA,

I love these guys and posted one several yeas ago, they pose well as evidenced by the picture. Very regal look and a perfect HA. I agree with the wide aperture adjustment but the background was probably a distraction anyway. You are on the right track here, nice exposure and gong out of your way to get different and original pictures. I am not suggesting going somewhere you should not, but as Artis says "you have to get your pants dirty to get the good shots". I might suggest levels adjustments to make the blacks pop more or adding dark a tad (+2) using selective colors. Nice picture, keep working on controlling the background (very important) and thanks for sharing.

[P-A. Fortin]

Thanks for the comments. Levels, curves and color adjustments are tools I need to learn to work with. I mean, I understand easily how the tools work, but I have a hard time spotting images where it could be useful, and how.

Hopefully it won't be as hard as learning how to select feathers in a picture. You may have noticed that the "mustache" feathers were not sharpened. That is me, giving up on something

The reason I should never visit this spot alone again is not because of the dirt on my pants, it is because it seems to be a well-known spot for.. let's say "people who would be more interested in taking my pants off, then getting dirty"

[Kerry Perkins]

Hello P-A., nice job of catching the phoebe in soft light - definitely a key to getting this bird exposed properly. You do have an issue with the back and tail being in shadow, but the other areas are nicely lit. This is the dilemma with mixed light. I would get out the crop and clone tools and get rid of all that distracting stuff on the right, as you don't need any space over there and the bright branch is very distracting to the eye. So, you could crop away a bunch of stuff on the right and then clone out that bright branch that parallels the tail. I think this would make this image stronger. As for knowing when to use which adjustment, that is something that comes with experience and study. Knowing how to evaluate an image is a vital part of becoming a better photographer, so I'm glad you brought this up. I hope this sparks some discussion, and here is what I look for in an image, considering only the technical aspects and not composition.

• Dynamic range - good white point and black point with no blown highlights or blocked blacks
• Focus - pretty basic
• Color Balance - neutral tones show no color cast and the color temperature is right for the situation - colors look realistic
• Tonal Balance - continuous representation of dark to light tones, not contrasty
• Saturation - good color images generally have pretty deep saturation, but not too much
• Sharpness/Bokeh - parts of the image that should be sharp have nice detail, often enhanced by a blurred bg that should look good
• Noise Control - digital cameras often have noise that needs to be dealt with
• Quantity and Quality of light - even illumination from soft sources, no harsh shadows or bright spots

By exploring the various tools in Photoshop, you will learn when to use each one to correct specific problem areas.

[P-A. Fortin]

Not many people seem to read/post in this forum area sadly so I have doubts about the probability of success in trying to start a discussion...

Your listing is very interesting and should be used as some kind of checklist in anyone's workflow.

Tonal balance is definitely the aspect I have the most trouble analyzing in an image. I have a hard time spotting a flaw in this department in any image, as well as figuring out how I could improve it. I mean, I understand which tools should be used, but I am unable yet to look at an image and figure out how the final result should look.

[Kerry Perkins]

P-A., ouch! Sad but true. Here is one clue - if an image looks "milky" or "cloudy", it is because the mid-tones are elevated. Use the curves or levels adjustment to make the difference between black and white more pronounced.

[P-A. Fortin]

Levels adjustment is something I got a hold of rather quickly (well, for the black and white points). It's pretty much all about stretching the histogram to its limits.

Mid-tones is the tough part. If I take the image in this thread as an example. The bird's pixels are pretty much located to the left of the histogram due to the black and dark tones.

- Moving the mid-tones point (in the levels tool) to the left makes the image too bright, which seems normal to me since it reduces the range of values for the dark pixels.
- On the other hand, moving the mid-tones point to the right increases this range, making the bird look less "flat", but darker.

Second options seems like the obvious way to go, but with the need to avoid aggressive adjustments.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi P-A, Nice detail and head angle. I agree about the bright stick being a distraction. Interesting discussion. I've found over time and experimenting that levels has become probably my most used adjustment to bring out more detail. I also find that everyone has different taste regarding how much contrast they like. I've also learned through BPN that you can be fairly aggressive with adjustments, meaning that at the beginning I was moving things maybe 2-5 points in either direction. Now, I know with certain adjustments you can sometimes need to go much further depending on the type of adjustment. There are some you still need to only lightly apply, e.g. shadows and highlights. People often look for easy rules, but unfortunately I don't think there are any.

Kerry - I like your list.

TFS,
Rachel