White Egret

[Peter Farrell]

Been a while since I posted in Avian. Hopefully I have made some progress.
Sony A230, 70-400G @400mm, f5.6, 1/800, iso100, ec-0.3, HH
PP in Elements 8: Shadows/highlights on bird, cleaned up bill as it had some feathers on it, sharpened bird and perch, cloned out black stup under perch, blurred Bg sloghtly and NR on BG.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Angle, head angle and sharpness look good. The light seems to be a bit on the harsher side and I might blur the BG a bit more. The legs and perch look noticeably less sharp than the head.

[Randy Stout]

Peter:

Axel hit most of the points. I do find that the bill has gotten a bit blunt and blurred from your clone work on the feathers. I would prefer a sharp bill with a few feathers to losing definition and detail.

It is a process, getting better with post processing, and some images are just tougher than others because of the number of things you need to fix. It is easy to say, but hard to do, but the better/cleaner you get the in camera image, by selective shooting angle, aperture choice, etc., the easier your life will be!

Keep working it!

Randy