Cute Little Goose...

[Arthur Morris]

Another one from the norhteast speaking tour. (A big time thanks to Canon USA for their sponsorship!) This Brant was photographed at the North Channel Bridge in Howard Beach NY, technically part of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. When I used to live in Queens, these birds were super-skittish. Now many respond eagerly to Wonder Bread...

Canon 600mm f/4L IS lens (on Wimberley V2 head/Gitzo 3530 LSV CF tripod) with the 1.4X II TC and the EOS 1D MIII. ISO 400. Exposure determined by histogram check: 1/500 sec. at f/5.6.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.

[Gus Cobos]

Wow...very nice image and composition Arthur...:)
I like the details of his feathers and the nice pale background brings him out...:D

[Brian Wong]

Hi Artie!

Wow ... I really like how all the various black tones came out! The bill is like silky chocolate! Very pretty!

[Jim Poor]

Cute is definitely the right word. I'm betting you could make a cool image just from the reflection in the eye too!

[Harold Davis]

very nice. love the soft light on the bird. adds to the sweetness.

[Fabs Forns]

Sweet bird, nice specimen, great colors :)
Light didn't suck.

[Arthur Morris]

Fabs: it's NYC. What to suck??? See you SAT I hope.

[Bonnie Block]

Really nice, Artie!
Love the detail--and yes they are not too easily approached here in the PNW either. Very cool birds, aren't they?

[Arthur Morris]

Yes Bonnie, way cool They were one of my four target species on the trip. Got nice stuff on Herring Gull, Brant, and Prothonotary Warbler (in SC) but did not get within 100 miles of a Purple Sandpiper...

[Glenn Bartley]

Great portrait Artie. The bird and BG are great. Im not sure that this one needs quite as much space in front as you gave.....I think Id prefer to see a bit more of the birds shoulder and the frame pushed a touch right......or.......just a bit looser comp in general.

[Kenn Christensen]

wonderfully exposed... love the way the bg frames the bird too.... very cool

[Milo Burcham]

I wonder if the wonder bread trick will work up here... I can't get anywhere near the few that I see! Beautiful portrait and congrats on getting one of your target species.

[Phil Bayley]

I think I want that camera. Altho it appears you either over sharpened the head or could have done a better job with the magic wand.

[Leroy Laverman]

Excellent exposure as usual. The composition works for me too. There is a strong sharpening halo around the face, especially below the beak and chin but that's easy to fix up. This bird looks fairly plump as compared to the brant's I'm used to seeing. Must be all that bread :)

[Arthur Morris]

Glenn, Thanks for your suggestion. I prefer the COMP exactly as is.
Milo, I doubt that Wonder Bread would work up there; maybe sourdough???
Phil, I see no evidence of oversharpening of the head, and I did not use the Magic Wand. Are referring to the bottom of the bill? If yes, please see below.
Leroy. I do not see any sharpening halo "around the face," and certainly not a strong one. You mention that the halo is most evident below the beak (and the chin). The chin looks fine to me; are you referring to the corrugated look on the lower mandible?

All: Is anyone or everyone seeing what Phil and Leroy are seeing? Thanks.

[Jim Poor]

Now that look at it closer, yes, I see a halo around the bill, most noticeably underneath.

I think Phil may be referring to the halo as over-sharpening (which it isn't) it is more a matter of sharpening the edges.

I enlarged the bill area to emphasize the halo.

[Brian Wong]

You mention that the halo is most evident below the beak (and the chin). The chin looks fine to me; are you referring to the corrugated look on the lower mandible?

All: Is anyone or everyone seeing what Phil and Leroy are seeing? Thanks.

Hi Artie!

I am really "Halo Blind" here also, and have worked really hard, and struggled on this very issue. Your chin looks fine to me ... when view "normally" on my calibrated screen.

But in my efforts to discover more on this subject, I have stumbled on this "trick". Artie, I hesitate to mention it here, as I don't really think the whole world needs to view each image down to the pixel!! However, for "educational purposes" .... if you severely tilt your LCD screen to a very severe-off-angle ... I guess you can say I can finally see the tiny Halo there.

I hope people can appreciate that this is mentioned here as more of an aid for improvement ... I really don't want to see people turning everything upside down just to enjoy a beautiful image:)!

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks to Phil and Leroy for opening my eyes, to Jim for revealing the halo, and to Brian for showing us all how to see the halos that we have not been seeing for so long... As I said in a previous post, I create all of my j-pegs with an action that features generic sharpening settings. While I am finally convinced that the halo in this image (and probably in most of my images) do actually exist, I will not at all be concerned with them or with eliminating them. For years folks have been amazed at how good my j-pegs look and I agree with them. If I need to tilt my monitor 45 degrees or blow a small j-peg up to see them, I am not gonna worry about them. And I certainly am not going to spend ten minutes on each j-peg when they currently take me an average of about 1 second per image (using the action).

ps: When I looked at the un-processed TIFF and enlarged it greatly, there was a small whitish fringe along the bottom of the bill and the chin; I am pretty sure that this is what is causing the halo here after the image size in pixels is drastically reduced and then the image is sharpened...

Again, I thank all parties who helped me with my halo education but must admit that having j-pegs with halos has not hurt my career much

[Leroy Laverman]

Halos are always a bit tricky. Sharpening by it's very nature necessitates the creation of halos. The goal is to make them unnoticeable in viewing conditions. I'm sure this looks fine and is actually what you want in a print. From what I've read if an image is sharpened correctly for a print it probably will look bad on screen (not that this image is bad by any stretch) . I typically sharpen through an edge mask and change the "blend if" settings as shown above. This screen is accessed via the "blending options" in the layers menu. Note: to split the sliders hold down the 'alt' key while you drag the slider. The goal here is to reduce the sharpening on edges that already have strong contrast (e.g. black beak against bright water). This allows you to boost the midtone sharpening more and avoid halos (most of the time). Splitting the sliders gives you a smooth transition from fully sharpened midtones to unsharpened highlights and shadows. There are of course many ways to do things in photoshop but this technique has generally worked well for me.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Leroy, I checked most of my recent posts and this is the only one with a halo. It is important to realize that my 800 pixel j-pegs are for web display only...