Is this a composite? (focus stacks or exposure blends are not considered composites) No
Nice detail and head turn, Terry. It looks to me as if you ended up with a rather strong purplish color cast, particularly evident in the shadows, but even the face looks like it’s affected.
Yeah, I see it, Dennis. I’ll adjust and repost. Thanks
Hi Terry
That is a nice looking Mourning Dove. The framing, eye, head and wing have good detail and color. I think Topaz had a problem with the light kickoff the tree and smudged the branch and breast.
Peter
Terry: Could you convert your original file to jpg without processing and post it? Something weird is happening. You’re losing detail in the body of the bird all the time and it doesn’t make sense given the sharpness of the face/eye.
A challenging image to process, Terry. The bright spots make things difficult and in addition to being underexposed, there was less detail in the bird than I thought. I made a crude attempt at it by first burning down the bright spots, then bringing up the exposure on the background and bird/perch separately. I then played with the color balance on the bird until I got something that looked about right, but it seemed oversaturated, so I pulled that down. I suspect people like Keith with much better processing skills than I could do better and starting from the full resolution RAW file should help, but this is what I ended up with.
Thanks, Dennis. When I processed it, I started with the bird first, since it was underexposed, and used the subject selector to isolate it, then tried to adjust the background highlights. Maybe the reason I got the purplish overtones to begin with?
Hi Terry, I agree, mourning doves are really pretty. This is a beautiful, soft looking image to go with the delicate, timid personality of these birds. Nice capture!
Terry, this is a great pose in tough background conditions. The repost with a bit of color balance really helps. Based on the raw version and the adjustments Dennis did, it really looks like De-Noise was not your friend when it comes to detail. I’m not sure you need much in the way of noise control at all…I think if you could take your color-balanced repost and reduce or eliminate the noise control, you’d have a real winner. Just a thought.
Thanks, David. The photo was fairly noisy but perhaps I can do a better job of suppression. I’ll give it a go.
