Theme: White Pelican

[John Hackney]

Canon 7D, EF 100-400 mk I, 400mm, 1/1000, ISO 200, f/5.6

154765
Crop to size, adjust white and black points, gamma, highlights and shadows. Added a little saturation.

[Ian Wilson]

I would suggest you crop off the sliver of blue at the bottom or clone over to be more uniform with the brown in the background. Also, remove or tone down the oof white patch under the bill. The feather detail looks just a little 'soft' which makes me wonder if you omitted to output sharpened after downsizing for BPN posting. There is also an unnatural blue glow on the RHS of the bird's neck which may be indicating a little WB adjustment is needed. Regards, Ian.

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Ian made some great suggestions there John!
If possible, try to be considerate of the background elements when composing in camera to try and eliminate
having to do too much post processing though.
I'd have tried to step a little to the right, which would get the OOF white bird out of the frame most likely.
A slightly more ideal HA would also improve the image.
Well done and keep 'em coming!
TFS

[John Hackney]

I would suggest you crop off the sliver of blue at the bottom or clone over to be more uniform with the brown in the background. Also, remove or tone down the oof white patch under the bill. The feather detail looks just a little 'soft' which makes me wonder if you omitted to output sharpened after downsizing for BPN posting. There is also an unnatural blue glow on the RHS of the bird's neck which may be indicating a little WB adjustment is needed. Regards, Ian.

Thanks Ian. I did output sharpening so I probably could do a little more sharpening to start. I had a thought about the blue strip but didn't act on it. I will follow your other suggestions.

[John Hackney]

Thanks Akos. I had the same thoughts on the HA. I had carefully maneuvered into location and was on my belly for the shot. I can not remember if I could have moved to the side with out spooking the bird. Great info on the BG.

[John Hackney]

New attempt following suggestions.

154777

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Great RP mate. Much much better

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk

[Karl Egressy]

Very nice image. The repost looks much better.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi John, I love my Pelicans, and I like your portrait. Enough space all round. I feel your OP is quite soft, even though you state that you did infact sharpen it. Good points from the guys above, especially from Akos regarding the BG. Hope you dont mind, but here is a very quick 5 minute attempt on a few of my issues. I cropped up from the bottom to remove the blue strip. Ive run some sharpening over the Pelican, and removed the blue cast. I blended away some of the 'distracting bits' in the BG, and finally I ran a low opacity multiply blending layer over the whole image.

[John Hackney]

Thank you Akos and Karl.

Thank you Stu. Wonderful work. I had a notion on the distracting areas you removed but just didn't go there. The sharpening turned out that I simply did not start with enough as you can see in the report. My Photoshop knowledge isn't up to the quality on many here. What is a multiply blending layer?

[adrian dancy]

John...how many hours after sunrise or before sunset was the image created?

[Stu Bowie]

What is a multiply blending layer?

John: duplicate the layer Ctrl J, and under layers, you will find a lot of different 'blending' layers to play with. I always choose the multiply layer if the image is a touch too bright, and then lower the opacity to suit. Hope that helps.

[John Hackney]

John...how many hours after sunrise or before sunset was the image created?

It was taken about 3 hours before sunset.

[John Hackney]

John: duplicate the layer Ctrl J, and under layers, you will find a lot of different 'blending' layers to play with. I always choose the multiply layer if the image is a touch too bright, and then lower the opacity to suit. Hope that helps.

Thanks Stu. I think I understand what you are saying. I just don't use PS that involved yet.

[adrian dancy]

Thanks for replying John. I do not think that given the time of day the image would be as warm as in pane 6. Your original image is about right but needs a bit more punch with a bit of tweaking. Your original image looks fine on the sharpness front too, a small tweak but no more. It looks to me that the image was created on a very windy day and the bird has raised its short neck feathers which are going to vibrate and thus create a slightly velvety appearance which can rob the appearance of detail. So, in my very humble opinion you are very near the mark in the original post. I don't know if you can remove the blue cast totally without damaging image quality for a full size print. Given that there are shaded areas in the whites that have not succumbed to blue casting I have to question whether it is blue cast at all, or simply the way the feather structure picks up the blue light from the sky and the water, which does occur in nature. One for an expert and not me.

[John Hackney]

Thank you Adrian. I believe you are right in your observations. It is usually breezy in the afternoon in my area, specially on lakes and this is a large one very near mountains.