What technical feedback would you like if any?
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any comments welcome!
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
This guy was in the shade with the BG too bright, but I didn’t have the flash on at the time so did what I could. Canon R5, 700mm, ISO 2000, f/10, 1/160 sec, braced on beanbag on railing. Shadows and Highlights full throw in LR, into PS for Topaz DeNoise. Very minor BG cloning; some burn on the right.
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Excellent capture of this woodpecker, Diane. The details are really great. I love his head turn for you.
I think what you did was bring shadows all the way up and highlights all the way down in LR. No matter what you did it looks pretty good. Only PP’n I might suggest would be to desat the blues some. It might make the whites a little cleaner and it would take the blue sheen off the back.
Reaally sharp and I like the dof. Bird has a nice look back pose.
Thanks guys! Yes, that’s what I meant on the shadows and highlights – trying to save typing, I guess. But now looking back at the raw file, I see I only went to +73 on the Shadows. I thought about the blues but the unadjusted raw file shows blue there and the file otherwise looks accurately neutral. I get to shoot these guys often in a variety of lighting and I often see that blue on their back. I assume it’s reflected from the sky. But I agree that it does look a bit unexpected, and I’ll tone it down.
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Here’s a repost – blues reduced, brightened a bit globally, and I also fixed the area I hadn’t noticed on the forehead where the whites went gray on top and have a yellow cast on the side – that area should be white. The yellow on the throat is correct, but I doubt it should extend to the side of the forehead.
Very good detail in the plumage, Diane. The recovery in LR worked very well, so you must not have had anything the blacks blocked or the whites blown. As long as you manage that, it’s usually possible to recover in post processing these days. Your resultant image looks excellent with just the right balance of brightness in the background to look realistic without overpowering. The blue tone doesn’t bother me as I’ve seen it in other images of this bird. Many black birds have a bit of blue cast to the black and I think it’s real.
Nice capture Diane with fine details. Great eye contact with the bird. Pleasing background. Well done.
Excellent detail and nice head turn. The overall setting is attractive.
