I'm going through the archives to update the SmugMug page

[flamin lib]

This is from a trip to the gulf coast a few years ago. The lighting was horrible with high contrast direct sun and the challenge of exposing for a white bird. I ran it through post and arrived at this. The thing is I tend to over do as I don't always know when to stop and go 'blind' to the incremental changes.

So, I'm asking for a critique. Please weigh in and give an opinion about the outcome? Is something artificial about it? How obvious are the changes?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. This is a stunning photo, my dear flamin lib!

I do not see anything artificial in your beautiful photo. It works!

It's actually a fantastic portrait of a bird family: Dad on top, observing the world, and the Mom and the chicks below. The placement of the birds is perfect. You could not have gotten a more perfect photo if you'd even tried. They are superbly arranged!

This definitely belongs in your website.

[flamin lib]

2. Dad's 'attitude' is reflective of

the 12' alligator on the shoreline right below the nest . . .

[Pobeka]

3. Overall, well done. Nothing offensive. Two very small nits, and a what if

Possibly the sharpening on the neck of the upper bird is a little too much -- there is a bit of a black halo obvious between the neck and the branch.

I see a little chromatic aberration on some of the sticks in the nest.

Neither of those are deal breakers at all, abstractions of the 3rd order...

What if -- the exposure of the top 1/2 of the upper bird was about 1/8th of a stop lower?

I feel your pain on a photo like this -- in the PNW the dynamic range is massive -- preventing blowouts from the sky or snowfields and still capturing shadow detail is a major challenge with my little rx100ii and its 1 inch sensor.

What I see here is a very commendable job as far as I can tell.

[flamin lib]

4. Thanks, just the kind of things I'm looking for!

I improved the black halo by increasing pixel count (resizing) from 16meg to 28meg. Still there but the black pixels are half the size making the halo half the size.

Not much I can do about the CA. Had I shot it in RAW there is a lens correction for that. I shot this with the 75-300 consumer lens from Oly before I upgraded to the 300f4 PRO which is from a whole 'nother zip code. Still, not too bad for a $500 lens.

I tried burning the neck area of the top bird, but there's just nothing there to recover. It just gets muddy.

All that said, you didn't mention the major changes I made, so I guess I didn't go TOO far

[Pobeka]

5. You're welcome. I am curious to see the original.

It's always instructive to see how other folks do PP.

What I look for, generally, is does the photo look natural? This definitely does look natural. No super obvious PP halos, or distracting areas, or areas that had been cloned to correct another distraction in the photo.

[flamin lib]

6. here ya' go

[Pobeka]

7. That confirms it. IMHO you made very good choices in PP.

[flamin lib]

8. Thank you.

And I made those choices because people like you helped me grow as an image maker.

If we look critically at our work it improves. If not it stagnates.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, invited or not.

[HAB911]

9. LOVE IT!

They just pop off the screen!

[flamin lib]

10. Thank you.

[ManiacJoe]

11. On my calibrated monitor it looks great!

None of the edits are "obvious".
Well done with the exposures for the birds and the dark background.
If you are not shooting raw files, this is a great example of why you should.

[flamin lib]

12. Thanks, that's the goal. Improve, not change.

If ya' can see it, it's too much.

Shooting raw + now and using aftershot3 to edit. This is quite old and sitting idle because I didn't have the skill set.

[ManiacJoe]

13. AfterShot3 is Corel's software, right?

How do you like it?