Eastern Bluebird - male.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Thankfully there is a nice looking perch close to one of the nesting boxes. The bluebirds seem to prefer man-made structures to perch on (barbed wire, fence posts, top of nest box) but with a bit of patience they will land on the natural branch. The perch is borderline heavy, but I feel the hole at bottom left corner helps alleviate that.

Canon 40D + 100-400L @400mm, 1/500s., f/8, ISO400, no EC, handheld and in vehicle as a hide.

[Jim Poor]

Nice comp & BG. I think the perch is way heavy, but the color in it sort of makes up for that.

[Arthur Morris]

I like it and I l-o-v-e that perch. And the background too, and the sharpness and the compostion. The head angle is off a hair; the bird is facing slightly away. Can anyone find the three things that I did in the repost? (Another option would be a crop from the bottom).

[john crookes]

mmmmmmmmm looks like you fixed llc of branch

did your eye trick and also lighten the face area around the eye

actually the whole breast is lighter

Make that the whole image

my eyes are playing tricks on me as i go back and forth so I brought them both into ps side by side

[Mike Milicia]

The perch works for me.
Beautiful bird and background ! Nicely done !

[Arthur Morris]

John, yes to fixed the eye but did not touch the brightness anywhere. Still two more changes to find...

[john crookes]

did you not patch the broken piece of wood in the lower left corner of the branch too

[Jim Poor]

I see the eye, and the "fixed" parts of the perch. Still looking for # 3 though.

[john crookes]

Also I may have looked at the4m backwards as yours seams a tad darker or a tad more sat

[Jim Poor]

Ok, I took both into PS as separate layers and put one on top of the other. Turning visibility of the top layer on and off, I can only see the fix of the perch (unless you're counting the two areas as two fixes) and the eye change. Anything else is too subtle for me to notice.

[john crookes]

Whwn i overlay them on top of each other it is just the eye and the two areas of the branch that are different

[john crookes]

when i overlay i usually check the diferent parts by changing the blend mode to difference like this

It shows thw eye and the two parts of the wood as different.

this method would not show a hue and sat or levels adjustmenty though

[Grady Weed]

The blue looks lighter on the head and back side of the bird. and the perch rocks, as does the whole image!

[Arthur Morris]

John and Jim nailed it (though they used pretty sophisticated methods...) Any actual differences in the tones, SAT, etc. is surely a result of re-saving a JPEG. I think that the eye is a huge improvement and the two thingies on the perch bothered the heck out of me.

[Francis Bossé]

Gorgeous image Daniel. The tree parts, the bird, the perch and background are working nicely together. You did a wonderful job! Thank for sharing...

[Stephen Stephen]

Dan very nice image and I like Artie's eye brightening. I'll leave the PS sleuthing to the experts.

I hope to get out with you soon so that we can get some practice with our new 40Ds :D

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great details, light and perch which is not overpowering despite the size. I also like the BG.

[John Cooper]

love your image here Daniel - such a sweet looking bird with beautiful tones. The interesting perch with lichen only adds to the impact IMO. Well seen and taken!!!

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Daniel, Just noticed one small detail: there are two holes in the perch. The BKGR in the right hand hole is much darker in tonality than the rest of the BKGR (which is entirely uniform).

[David Steele]

Superb work, Daniel.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Well this turned out to be quite a fun thread! Thanks for the replies, and Artie thanks for the repost - the eye looks especially better. As for the darker "hole" in the perch...I had noticed it too after I had posted the image. An unfortunate dark patch in the vegetation that will be easily fixable (and definitely improve on the overall finished look) :-)

Thanks again!

[Robert Smith]

Yep, your perch has definite "character". Too bad he didn't tilt his head down just a tad for the shot, but I sure like it as presented (especially after the eye fix and the habitat restoration....). Not much that I can add, except congrats on a cool capture!