General feelings about image... Egyptian Goose

[Rectory Photography]

Hi, i'm just wanting some general feedback on this image which was taken early in the morning during low light....i also took exposure comp down to favour not blowing out the highlights..... I've been changing my editing style recently and am not so sure about things at the moment......
Any general thoughts much appreciated....

Egyptian Goose, UK by ivor ottley, on Flickr

 

[Rassie]

Technically the image is as good as it gets. Exposure, focus, colour saturation, contrast and lighting, all good. Depending on what you want to do with it,
the only thing left is how to crop it.

 

[Nimi]

Hi, i'm just wanting some general feedback on this image which was taken early in the morning during low light....i also took exposure comp down to favour not blowing out the highlights..... I've been changing my editing style recently and am not so sure about things at the moment......
Any general thoughts much appreciated....

Egyptian Goose, UK by ivor ottley, on Flickr

Not crazy about the square crop for this image. Depending on how much space you got around the original, I'd stick with some landscape format.

 

[bleirer]

I couldn't find any blown out areas and I think you got the colors looking good. I'd like a little more room for the bird to fly into. Photoshop can invent some for you if you are willing. I wouldn't mind if there was less contrast in the background by bringing up the darks. Probably select the subject then select the inverse, then curves to bring up the darks a touch in the background. The reason being that the eye is drawn to the contrast in the background.

 

[jeffnles1]

like others have said, the exposure and focus is great. While not always the best, I always try a 16X9 crop on flying birds, especially when there isn't anything terribly interesting in the background. The long narrow crop tends to give the bird more "room to navigate" in the image.

 

[Rectory Photography]

Thanks very much for this..... I will have another go at the crop and repost...

 

[NorthernFocus]

My comments pretty much mimic what others have already said. Some sort of rectangular rather than square crop and try to reduce the contrast in the BG. Applying a vignette would also help mute the BG particularly the bright portion low in the frame. IMO with the bird in this position either a 4x5 or standard 4x6 crop with slightly more room in front of the bird and they eye on the top 1/3 line would work well.

 

[Rectory Photography]

My comments pretty much mimic what others have already said. Some sort of rectangular rather than square crop and try to reduce the contrast in the BG. Applying a vignette would also help mute the BG particularly the bright portion low in the frame. IMO with the bird in this position either a 4x5 or standard 4x6 crop with slightly more room in front of the bird and they eye on the top 1/3 line would work well.

Thanks for this. When you say reduce contrast in background, what would you use to do that......is it to slightly blur the detail or to reduce the colour?

 

[Rectory Photography]

Here is a revised crop. Any better ?

Egyptian goose 2 by ivor ottley, on Flickr​

 

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for this. When you say reduce contrast in background, what would you use to do that......is it to slightly blur the detail or to reduce the colour?

I use LR so can only speak to Adobe tools. I'd do a BG mask then fiddle with the sliders for highlights, shadows, texture, clarity, haze... And yes maybe saturation. Different sliders work better on different images. What you're trying to do is eliminate contrast/bright spots like @bleirer said above.

An overall bright BG isn't necessarily a bad thing but bright spots/patches tend to draw attention. That's what you're trying to avoid.

 

[NorthernFocus]

Here is a revised crop. Any better ?

Egyptian goose 2 by ivor ottley, on Flickr​

This is better IMO. Though my own preference/style would put a little less space behind the bird. Maybe half what's in this version. The idea is for the bird to be flying into the frame.

 

[Rectory Photography]

This is better IMO. Though my own preference/style would put a little less space behind the bird. Maybe half what's in this version. The idea is for the bird to be flying into the frame.

I've adjusted it again....
Egyptian goose FINAL by ivor ottley, on Flickr

 

[Rectory Photography]

I couldn't find any blown out areas and I think you got the colors looking good. I'd like a little more room for the bird to fly into. Photoshop can invent some for you if you are willing. I wouldn't mind if there was less contrast in the background by bringing up the darks. Probably select the subject then select the inverse, then curves to bring up the darks a touch in the background. The reason being that the eye is drawn to the contrast in the background.

Thanks for this, much appreciated.... I will play around with that..I think you are right about the background....i should have seperated the bird and kept the background darker... The image was taken in dark conditions and my previous style of editing tended to brighten everything up....... The black wing tips for example were much darker in reality, so the question is should they be less detailed and darker or shadows raised.....I'm basically trying to edit in a more expressive way....not just brighten it all up, but the change has created questions in my mind and a 'not knowing' which is i suspect the nature of doing anything differently than before.

 

[Rectory Photography]

like others have said, the exposure and focus is great. While not always the best, I always try a 16X9 crop on flying birds, especially when there isn't anything terribly interesting in the background. The long narrow crop tends to give the bird more "room to navigate" in the image.

Thanks for this, i'll try that out.

 

[NorthernFocus]

I've adjusted it again....
Egyptian goose FINAL by ivor ottley, on Flickr

Lovely. Awesome detail on the bird BTW.

 

[bleirer]

Thanks for this, much appreciated.... I will play around with that..I think you are right about the background....i should have seperated the bird and kept the background darker... The image was taken in dark conditions and my previous style of editing tended to brighten everything up....... The black wing tips for example were much darker in reality, so the question is should they be less detailed and darker or shadows raised.....I'm basically trying to edit in a more expressive way....not just brighten it all up, but the change has created questions in my mind and a 'not knowing' which is i suspect the nature of doing anything differently than before.

I think the lighter part of the background is nice because it contrasts well with the darker subject, I would just raise the dark parts a touch.

 

[Rectory Photography]

I think the lighter part of the background is nice because it contrasts well with the darker subject, I would just raise the dark parts a touch.

Ok, yes i see..... even out the backgoround so its more uniform..... The diffference from top to bottom does stand out a little.

 

[bleirer]

Select the subject, invert the selection so the background is selected, go to the curve and use the eyedropper tool to click on a dark part and on a light part, then raise the dark part of the curve a little while keeping the light part steady.

 

[Rectory Photography]

Select the subject, invert the selection so the background is selected, go to the curve and use the eyedropper tool to click on a dark part and on a light part, then raise the dark part of the curve a little while keeping the light part steady.

Thats a great tip....many thanks for that, for some reason i've never picked that up and used it before....very useful indeed!

 

[Anthony]

As others have said, the capture of the bird is excellent, and the revised crop works well. White feathers are hard to get right, especially surrounded by darker feathers, but you have nailed this.

I do, however, find the angle of the water ripples slightly visually disturbing, as they cut across the line of flight.

 

[NatureBoy]

Very interesting bird

 

[DRwyoming]

The revised crops are much nicer IMO. Great capture of an interesting subject. Nicely done!