Australian King Parrot

[Colin Driscoll]

• Canon EOS R5
• ƒ/5.6
• 840mm
• 1/3200s
• ISO 8000
• Tue, 11 March 2025 2:17 PM

An immature male progressing to adult plumage. Young males start out the same as females, deep green almost all over but gradually develop the striking deep orange head and breast.
This one was feeding on acacia seed pods.
ACR PS2025

 

[Steve Kaluski]

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.2 (Macintosh)

Not sure on this Colin, it almost has the appearance of a water colour, and a bit more DoF for my tastes.

If I just take your OP, run a started WB on the subject you can see just how vibrant the colours are, then just tweaking the BKG to give more emphasis and standout on the subject there is far more clarity. I'm certainly not saying this is correct, but I would look at the steps taken on the OP because something I feel isn't quite bang on.

Just my take, others may feel the OP is faithful, like yourself.

TFS
Steve

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Colin ... a good solid side profile of this lovely colorful species !!
Good amount of details and the BG is perfect for me ... structured and smooth at the same time.
The comp does not work for me and I personally think the colors are off to a degree ... I would at least change the WB and make some local color adjustments .

TFS Andreas

 

[Colin Driscoll]

I respectfully disagree with your color assessments. It might look nicer but is bordering on unrealistic. These birds are beside my house almost every day so I know what they look like.

 

[Dave Pastern]

I respectfully disagree with your color assessments. It might look nicer but is bordering on unrealistic. These birds are beside my house almost every day so I know what they look like.

As a fellow Aussie very familiar with this species, I can confirm that Colin’s colours in his original past look accurate to my eyes.

The re-worked image by Steve may look more aesthetically pleasing, but it is not accurate.

I mulled this response over for the past 24 hours before deciding to respond.

Cheered,

Dave

 

[Dave Pastern]

Colin - I do like Steve’s re-worked background. I would also prefer a slightly tighter crop cutting out that messy bottom Right hand corner. Are you OK with me editing your original image to demonstrate my suggested crop?

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Colin Driscoll]

Go for it Dave

 

[Dave Pastern]

Hi Colin at work, so using my iPhone to poorly edit your lovely image. Was aiming for a 1:1 square crop.

 

[Colin Driscoll]

Thanks, Dave. I did consider a closer square crop but part of the art of posting here is avoiding things that will raise objections, and square crop is one of them, unless very clearly necessary.

 

[Dave Pastern]

Thanks, Dave. I did consider a closer square crop but part of the art of posting here is avoiding things that will raise objections, and square crop is one of them, unless very clearly necessary.

I was unaware of no square crop policy. Ignore my prior post. I’ll do another crop keeping the original frame ratio when I get home and have Photoshop in front of me.

 

[Colin Driscoll]

Not a policy Dave, just something I have learned from experience/observation

 

[Dave Pastern]

OK, at home, had a quick play. Nothing drastic - just selected the background in LRC using masks and darkened it a tiny bit and added some warmth. Did 2 linear gradient masks at the top to darken them a bit more since they are much brighter than the L/R sides of the background around the bird.

In Photoshop, I just cropped (unrestrained) to remove the clutter at the bottom RH corner. I extended the canvas and used both content aware fill and generative fill (the former for the top section and the Left hand side extension using generative).

It's not 3:2 original. I did play with that, but couldn't get it to work and cut out that messy bit at the bottom RH corner. Going too tight means no breathing space in front of the bird and then the composition looks awkward. Fixing that means cutting its back off, which isn't pleasing either imho.

I'm not happy with omitting the branch that it was perched on either.

Ideally, cloning out the messy sections at the bottom RH would have been the best option, but my cloning skills aren't l33t enough for that at this point of time in my editing experience LOL.

I didn't touch the colours of the bird or make any changes to the bird. It is identical to the bird in your original shot in terms of exposure and colour temperature/hue/saturation, etc. I feel that the colours of the bird as per the original are very accurate. They may appear boring and bland and lack "vibrancy" but the colours are indeed accurate, at least to what my eyes tell me.

A slightly looser shot would have helped I think, but hindsight is wonderful isn't it LOL!

Cheers,

Dave

edit: I know your name from somewhere but I can't for the life of me remember where. Do you post on the Brisbane Birds Facebook page perhaps?

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

I respectfully disagree with your color assessments. It might look nicer but is bordering on unrealistic. These birds are beside my house almost every day so I know what they look like.

Fully ok ,if you disagree .... we do see color differently
I do know exactly as well how they do look like , Colin , in the past i have been to OZ .And if i do wish i can see them daily ... albeit in captivity , but that does not make a difference IMHO. I have even seen youngsters in that stage of plumage color ...
What jumped at first to my eye , was actually the color of the twig he is sitting on ... made me thinking the color is " off " to a degree . All that said just purely from my perspective .
You and others might disagree , fully alright .