A soft drizzle for a few morning hours, but this adult seemed to enjoy it.
Specific Feedback Requested
How does the background look, noise wise and color wise? Used Topaz AI again. I cleaned up the background in PS with some removals of a few bothersome branches and used the new selected mask tool in Lr to soften the background and then used a cooler white balance adjustment . The original seemed a bit to brownish.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D7100, Nikkor Lens 200-500 @500 mm, w/ 1.4 crop factor f6.3 @1/1600 ISO-1600 handheld.
Noise and colorwise the background looks ok, but I see some artifacts there from you cloning. At least that’s what I think they are. The softness looks good to make the bird stand out from the remaining branches. Color seems a little blue, but I don’t mind. Maybe try hitting the bird with a little contrast - the mid tones look like they could use a boost there. Also maybe a little warming of the white balance on just the bird. Sweet little thing. Nice catch.
I think the colors here are gorgeous with the whitish vegetation and the OOF pieces in the BG! There are a few BG floaters to clean up but that’s easy. Seems to still be some noise on the bird but hard to be sure at this size.
I also like the artistic feel to this image. The cool tones add to the subject matter. I think your point of focus was on the presenting flank and perhaps a little more detail can be teased out of the chest plumage. If you are up to it, some very careful cloning of the branch sticking out of the head of the sparrow would be very helpful.
Hi Stephen
My old complaint about the photograph is it makes me think of winter ( I had hoped for a few more weeks of 70 plus). I like the soft look and blending of the White-crown Sparrows colors with the background. Nice work/
Peter
I think this is a pleasing image. The color palette is nice and soft and complimentary for the subject.
All good. There are some clear issues in the background and I’m not wild about the branch coming out of the head. I did some work to clean up the background, remove the offending branch, and add a little light to the subject.
@peter , Thanks for the comments Peter, I agree about the wintery feel. And Keith , @Keith_Bauer, thank you for a new and improved version . I very much like the changes: the open V for on the perch plays much nicer and the extra pop to the bird does a better job of separating it from the soft background.
