Red Tail

[David_Schoen]

Red Tail in flight. Not the best BG

What technical feedback would you like if any?

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Pertinent technical details or techniques: iso 1600, 200-500 at 500, f8, 1600th, handheld, 75% of full frame

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[Mark_Seaver]

David, you’ve had a good year with birds in flight. I like the mix of sharpness and softness in the hawk. I think the background works very well (with the minor exception of the whitish area ulc). The bird’s colors show very well.

[Adhika_Lie]

As you’ve noted, the background is not really working for me either. But the bird is tack sharp and that’s always a good thing. I would suggest cloning out the gray triangle in the BG on the UL corner.

[David_Schoen]

Here is a redo on the BG. I masked the bird and did a tilt shift on the BG. Any better or too fakey?

[Adhika_Lie]

Definitely better! I wouldn’t think it being fakey. With this BG, I suggest investing more time on masking the bird. I can see some of those BG bleeding into the bird. Great improvement here, David

[Dennis_Plank]

This really shows off the red tail, David. It looks to me like you might have done some cleanup work on the wrong layer on the head-it looks like the top of the head and tip of the beak are a bit erased or cloned over. This is showing up on both versions. As for the background, I think I’d reduce the opacity of the tilt-shift layer a bit as it does look just slightly overdone to my eye.