The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This from Ft. DeSoto Park near St. Pete, FL . After shooting many other birds I got to the area where this Osprey was perched. Unfortunately by then the sun was quite bright in a cloudless sky which I attempted to tone down in LR and Ps. Still there may be some hot spots on the fish and osprey. But I think it was a keeper in the category of “decisive moment”
This is such an arresting arrangement of bird, perch and lunch. So much of interest here. Is that a trout? I don’t know my fish. The over-the-shoulder look back at you is really engaging - lot’s of immediacy here. And I love the feet. Osprey feet are so great. The shadows seem a bit light to me and I think bringing some down a touch would be more realistic. The bird is also centered and might do better to have more room to the left. If you don’t have it in camera you could easily add it in photoshop with Add Canvas & Content Aware Fill. What a majestic bird. I really need to get on my osprey game!
This looks pretty good, Richard. I really like the nice detail in the fish and the head turn from the Osprey. I don’t see any blown out areas in the fish or the top of the head-the usual suspects for that. There does seem to be an odd lack of detail in the white area under the tail of the osprey and in the plumage in general, which I’m not sure I understand, since the head, the fish and the perch all look good. I don’t know what you use for sharpening, but I’ve seen this kind of effect on the edges of the feathers from some of the AI programs. There’s also a very thin fringe around most of the bird which could be from trying to tone down the contrast or could also be from sharpening. There are a number of ways to control/fix that. If you’re just selecting and sharpening the bird, an easy way to avoid it is to use the [select/modify] command and shrink your selection by a few pixels, then feather it a touch. That will keep it from extending beyond the bird.
Thank you @Dennis_Plank and @Kris_Smith for your thoughtful critiques. I reworked this photo. The original was cropped on the left to get rid of more tree branches, so I went back and included more of the original photo and just removed the unwanted branches. This time I also started from a linear profile and used your suggested select/modify technique before sharpening, which seems to have helped a little
