A pair of Carolina Wrens is busily building a nest inside an old Traeger grill on my deck I no longer use. He/she was sitting in shadow with a very bright background behind her. I developed this photo using Photoshop Raw and Layers for the very first time. What do you think?
Hi Terry
You did a good job on the framing and exposure of the Wren. If you have the back ground in a layer, try bring the level down and maybe blur the squares.
Peter
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Hi Peter.
Thank you for the suggestion. I do have it in a layer and tried to bring exposure down a bit before I posted this, but failed miserably! Apparently I’m not yet proficient at that aspect! But I will try again.
Best,
Terry
This is really nice, Terry. Excellent detail in the wren and I love the bit of nest stuffing. I’m unsure about the Carolina, but I think in most wren species the male makes the basic nest structure and the female finishes it off for comfort. I’ve seen house wrens build in some crazy spots and the males will stuff everything in sight with twigs hoping the female will like one of them.
I’m not sure what that background is, but it works very well with the rest of the colors. My only nit as a retired engineer is that your deck rail isn’t level!
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Thanks much, Dennis. You are correct about the wrens. The cover blew off that smoker in a storm the previous night and, by the time I got out on the deck the next morning, he was busy building inside it. He worked all that day, and the next day, she joined in. I saw both of them out of it yesterday, so I raised the lid and took a peek. They have one corner of the smoker stuffed!
The background is actually the brick on my house. It’s a medium brown, but the sun was beating down on it when I took that photo. My roof extends out over my deck, and the wren was sitting in the shade on the deck rail with that very bright sunlit brick in the background. I tried to tone it down some, but it’s still just a bit bright. I will practice more on it later. If it makes you feel better, the deck rail is actually level; it’s the photo that isn’t. I didn’t notice until I posted it that it’s slightly off level due to operator error! The brick is tilted, too - you just can’t tell by the photo!
Thanks, again.
Did the straightening and blurred and darkened the background. I think it helps separate the highlights under the chin from the background. I see a lot of comments about lighting, but remember this is nature and sometimes (especially with birds) we have to use what we are given. Nice job.
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That is outstanding, Kelly! Thank you very much. That background is exactly what I had in mind, but I couldn’t get the mask to work. It looks better straightened, too. 
Thanks, again!
Terry, the masking was really quite simple. I used Topaz Labs Mask AI. I was able to mask, blur and darken the background all at the same time. Try it I think you’ll like it.
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Thanks, Kelly. I have ordered a new computer with Photoshop 2020 already loaded on it. I’m assuming I can get Topaz Mask AI as a plug in to it? I’ll check it out.