Oriole Overload

I rarely like to post photographs of birds in a feeder, but Orioles are the exception. This pair of Baltimores are enjoying a snack of grape jelly. I always have a huge flock of Orioles in the Spring, but this is the first time I have ever had Fall migrants. We’re enjoying a double treat of Orioles this year.

What technical feedback would you like if any? Any

What artistic feedback would you like if any? Any

Pertinent technical details or techniques: Canon 60D, Canon 70-300 IS USM Zoom @ 240mm, f/9.5, 1/250 sec., ISO 1000, Ev -0.5 step, Hand Held. Processed in Canon DPP and PSE 2020 for exposure and color. Shake reduction applied to birds, and Noise reduction was also used, though I can’t tell that it made any difference,

(If backgrounds have been removed, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

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I have no photos of orioles at all, so I can understand the excitement. The birds are beautiful, but I’m just not a hand-of-man kind of guy. I also see some noise, and I think your orange channel is blown in some areas.

Hi Terry. Great to get both of them in the same frame. The oranges do look a bit oversaturated and I think it caused you to lose a bit of detail.

Thanks @Lyle_Gruby and @Dennis_Plank. Easy enough to fix the saturation issue, but the noise is another issue altogether. I haven’t figured out how to effectively remove noise in PSE, yet. Thanks for your comments.

Hi Terry. I’ve been using a product called Neat Image for a number of years and I love it. I can literally just do the whole image without losing fine detail in the subject. I use the Photoshop plugin, but it’s also available as a stand alone product. It’s not super cheap, but I don’t believe I’ve had to pay for an update. It has really good automatic settings, but you can also calibrate it to your camera or download profiles for your camera model.

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Hey, Dennis. Thanks for the info! Looks like their latest version is designed to work with PSE 2020. They have a free trial download so, I’ll give it a look. Thanks, again for the info!

Hi Terry. As one other option, I simply use Photoshop’s built-in noise reduction. I select the subject (i.e., the portion of the photo I want to be sharp, maybe the bird and its perch, for example) using quick selection and then invert the selection to the background. I then go to filter–>noise reduction and use PS’s built-in NR. As an additional tip, prior to inverting the selection, I sharpen the subject independently of the rest of the image using the smart sharpen filter. All that said, I know several people who swear by Neat Image, as Dennis mentioned.

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Hi, Lyle. Thanks for the info. I’ll give that a try.