American White Pelican at sunrise; too dark?

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This immature White Pelican was photographed outside of Klamath Falls, Oregon (before the fires) at sunrise. I deliberately underexposed to avoid blowing out the white on the right side of the bird, but I overdid the underexposure (is that an oxymoron?). The black background and water I like, but the left side of the bird was also too dark. I selectively brought up the brightness of the bird but did not do the same to the reflection. Does the bird need to be brighter? The reflection? Also, when I brought up the exposure I started to get a blue tinge, likely reflection from the water. I brought down the blue saturation in that area. Need more or less?
In retrospect, some fill flash would have made a big difference in the original shot.

awp-1.jpg
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If you are very keen to improve further on this, I feel there is still a blueish tinge on the left side of the Pelican. I hope you don't mind, I tried and edited your shot a bit further.

Tried and removed the blue tinge from the Pelican and the shadow in the water. Have increased the exposure a bit by 0.22 and then further reduced the highlights. See if you like it.

awp-1-edit.jpeg
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If you are very keen to improve further on this, I feel there is still a blueish tinge on the left side of the Pelican. I hope you don't mind, I tried and edited your shot a bit further.

Tried and removed the blue tinge from the Pelican and the shadow in the water. Have increased the exposure a bit by 0.22 and then further reduced the highlights. See if you like it.

View attachment 4325
How did you reduce the blue tinge? I think I like my exposure better but I like your reduction of the blue cast. Thank you for your time.
 
How did you reduce the blue tinge? I think I like my exposure better but I like your reduction of the blue cast. Thank you for your time.
I carefully brushed off all the area which had a blue tinge on the Pelican and the water. Then selected the blue colour on the palette and reduced its intensity to get the whites out.
 
I really like this photograph; the dark background makes the Pelican pop out. I also like both treatments of the photo. For me, I'd be flipping coins to decide on which to print!!
 
If you are very keen to improve further on this, I feel there is still a blueish tinge on the left side of the Pelican. I hope you don't mind, I tried and edited your shot a bit further.

Tried and removed the blue tinge from the Pelican and the shadow in the water. Have increased the exposure a bit by 0.22 and then further reduced the highlights. See if you like it.

View attachment 4325
I like this treatment. The highlights in the original were very close to being blown. Pulling them back just a tad like this also has the effect of contrast seeming to be slightly less, and that makes for a more pleasing image overall.

A beautiful image, this.
 
I concur with AlexY. When you get the subject right, the background becomes less important. The rippled water is enough to give some added interest to the background. I've got a great blue heron in a similar background, I'll post it as soon as I find it.
 
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