I recently returned from a trip to the Lower Rio Grand Valley of Texas. I didn’t come back with any stellar images but I do have some that I believe to be share worthy. It was fun to see birds that I’d never seen before. This Great Kiskadee was at the S. Padre Island Birding Center. I couldn’t tell what it had in it’s mouth until I got it on the computer.
I like the composition with very good perch and the food in the mouth is certainly a plus. Yes, even with the loss of image quality I like looking at this bird. Certainly something we don’t get in the Pacific Northwest.
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Aren’t these cool birds? Jay-like in demeanor and attitude.
I like this a lot - it IS soft, but I believe that can be minimized.
May I play with it this weekend and post my results? I have a few ideas…
If you’d rather I didn’t, or email the results only to you - that’s fine.
I’m always hesitant to work on anyone else’s images with out their express, clear consent.
Sandy
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Sure Sandy. Always open for that. Thanks.
Pretty good for 400 mm, Terri. They’re not easy to get all that close to. The prey is a nice bonus. I don’t see any artifacts of your cloning, so nice job there. The yellows look a little lighter than I remember, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the sun.
This is a lot better than my first shot of this species, which was almost straight overhead on a wire!
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Nice feeding capture. A striking bird. Nice isolation on the subject. If mine, I might try placing the bird lower in the frame.
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It looks fine for a big crop,
I would like to have this in my files…
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Terri - this is what I came up with - just MY idea and MY vision, having not been there.
About 10 min work - and maybe more than you would wish to alter
- changed crop
- brightened eye
- using content-aware “move” and “fill” to remove dark areas
- viveeza to increase detail
- Neat image to reduce noise
- decreased saturation of yellows
See what you think
S
Thanks Sandy for taking the time to edit. I like your idea of angling the branch more. The crop was already pretty extreme so I’m reluctant to remove more pixels because I do think that shows up in the feather detail. Your revision also showed that I could use more contrast. So I made some changes to accomplish that and a few other things - brightening the eye, lowering clarity in the background, etc.
