Here is a Painted Bunting photographed recently in South Texas, displaying it color best
Initially it looked a bit flat - I tried the Lights / Darks panel in TK7 to give it a little boost
Tough to handle those whites on the branch
As usual, any other points of view appreciated
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D 850 600 mm
1/1250 sec F 7.1 at iso 3200
DFine for noise reduction
Hi Karl
The framing , head turn and eye contact are great. The highlights in the branch and saturation of the Painted Bunting are a little over powering to me. What is TK7? This is a very nice photograph.
Peter
Great composition, Karl. I like the pose as well. the saturation on the bunting looks good to me and I don’t mind the brighter areas of the perch-they don’t distract me at all.
I also like this very much.I I am wondering if it will help if the highlight is warmed up just a tiny bit. There is a little bit of a “flash” look to it and I am thinking if it comes from the cooler highlights.
Saturation may be off a tad - depends on ones monitor too I suppose
TK7 is a Lumonosity Mask Panel - a PS plug IN by Tony Kuyper - just another option I guess
Karl, the colors here look very good throughout the picture. The full back, head turn shows off the bird very well.
A lovely bird in a nice position on a nice perch. All great stuff.
The perch is bright. I pulled the image into PS, did a color range selection via TK on the brightest branch parts and put that on a levels adjustment layer to tone them down. Not only did it tame the branch, but it pulled the berries, etc. down on the branch.
Then a small curves adjustment to deal on a Lights 2 mask, then a small sat adjustment based on a Sat 1 mask, then a little selective color adjustment on the reds to see if there was a bit more in the tail. Here’s the result.
A wonderful find on a lovely perch! I like @Keith_Bauer’s tweaks. I’d consider a slight crop from the left to lose the small bright area of the perch there. The colors look good to me – I’m sure if I ever had a bird this colorful in my viewfinder that I’d be too excited to get the shot.
Thanks @Keith_Bauer
I am trying to replicate your steps and dont come even close! - especially the berries!
What color range did u use on I assume a L4 mask ? Using levels you brought the black and midtown sliders to the right ?
Do you mean a small S curve on a L2 mask ?
And the berries ? I simply can’t get your red
Hi Karl,
a fine image and once you figure out Keith’s tweaks, it will be ready for the wall. Well done…Jim
Here is the color range selection mask that was put on a levels adjustment layer. Color range masks are not on Lights mask of any sort. (you asked and assumed a L4 mask). They are simply built by choosing a color to select for the mask.
To create it using the TK panel I clicked about here with an eyedropper and painted over anything I didn’t want adjusted with a black brush on the mask.
Here’s the Light2 mask. Again painting out anything I didn’t want to adjust with a black brush.
Those masks did the majority of the work after adjusting the controls on the respective adjustment layers.
Excellent pose and perch. It does look a bit flash and I think the adjustments made by Keith have improved the quality of the image. Along with the story and your queries about processing, this becomes a great teaching piece.
Once again, thanks @Jim_Zablotny , @Diane_Miller , @Adhika_Lie , @Dennis_Plank , @Mark_Seaver , @David_Schoen and @Keith_Bauer
TK can be useful but has a steep learning curve - and I am at the bottom
I have reworked this image but have not been able to reproduce that red in the berries - which btw, look real
A great learning experience for sure as David points out
Wonderful bird (always hard to imagine they are real 
) on a lovely perch. You delivered already a vert pleasing image, @Karl_Zuzarte , but also impressed by @Keith_Bauer 's PS skills - I will dive into it as it enhanced the image, which is something I would like to master… As @David_Schoen stated, a very interesting topic this way. But then, as with all good images, it started from good groundwork . Cheers, Hans
