Juvenile Towhee On a rock

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

besides the really small birds that frequent my feeder set up, I see a lot of Towhees. This one is a juvenile approaching adulthood. The eyes are not quite red yet. Hope it is an Over sharpened on your screen.

Specific Feedback

any

Technical Details

ISO 1000, 400 mL +1.4 X, F7 .1, 1000th, A 1


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Hi David, fine image. Really interesting to see the bird perched on the smooth, rounded rock. Nice details and head turn towards us. Pleasing BG. Well done.

Very good, David. Detail in the Towhee looks fine. I do see some sharpening artifacts in the rock where your software tried to add detail that wasn’t there. You could probably layer the sharpened image with an unsharpened version and replace the rock with the original. Unfortunately Artificial Intelligence isn’t very bright.

All I did was darken the rock and remove the bird poop from the rock. That’s what they be giving the impression of AI issues.

A nice pose and setting but something has gone wrong with the processing. I’d go back to the raw file and start over with just basic adjustments. The bird looks very nicely in focus but it looks lover-sharpened with artifacts in the tail, and the rock has a huge issue. Sharpening sounds wonderful, but it rarely is.

I think the rock (even if you remove the artifacts) is too dominant in the frame. I would consider cropping about the bottom half of it. But I do like the darker gradient at its base. That could be added back to a crop and could look natural. Or else just crop enough to remove the triangle of BG in the LL corner.

I’m curious what processing software you used. I suspect something has let you down.

Diane
I used several different programs in my workflow I maybe just the problem.
I opened images in light room classic, transfer over to DXo photo lab seven, reprocessing light room and then go to Photoshop 2024, I also use Topaz AI but I almost always eliminate the sharpening algorithm. Although lately that has been a problem with that has made the program crash.

All I did to the rock, which is a piece of granite from the stream in Idaho, selected it, darkened it, and removed very few specs of bird poop with the remove tool. Everything you see there’s pretty much what’s on the rock. And I don’t take that for granite.