Peter, nice pose and handling of the whites here. The wing is sharp, but the head a little soft, so you probably missed the focus on the all-important eye. A little selective sharpening to the head and eye would help.
Very nice catch! The head isn’t bad, to me – and might be one of the rare cases where “sharpening” (or pseudo-sharpening) might work – on a separate layer carefully masked just to the head.
I wonder about just a tad more reduction in highlights, although I don’t know how your software handles that. In LR/ACR the Highlights slider can bring out a little more detail, but if overdone will add gray.
I don’t know if you are into BG cloning but there are repeating patterns both above and to the right of the bird that might be mitigated with cloning. Here’s a quick and dirty example, with whites brought down a little for more detail (much better done on the raw file). As to the BG, it could be cropped from the top to get rid of the dark BG area in the left 60% of the frame. A lovely peaceful gliding pose with the BG nicely OOF.
Hi Sandy, Allen Sparks, Allen Brooks & Diane
Thank you for the comments, here is a repost with head sharper and the white toned down. Diane I can see your point, but those dark spots are part of Rock Neck state Park water system. you one see it better in the frame before the one I posted.
Peter
I don’t doubt they are real, it’s just that they feel awkward, compositionally. A crop could obscure most of the top one and then the other one would be less noticeable, at least for me. Birds can be so inconsiderate about where they do their best poses.
