Help with a hummer

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KCPhoto

KCPhoto

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Looking for critique, but also maybe a little post help on this one. Just didn't want to double post it. I love the don't point that at me stare on this fellas face. Unfortunately, there are the two vertical branches in the foreground left and right which are killing this composition. Thoughts and suggestions, please. I am loving BCG Forums so far.
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KCPhoto said:
Unfortunately, there are the two vertical branches in the foreground left and right which are killing this composition.
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Nice looking bird. You may be able to very carefully clone out the branches, at least the one on the left because it seems that it doesn't quite touch the bird's feathers. Some parts will be tricky like where the bright out of focus branch crosses the pine needles and you may have to clone out those pine needles as well to make it work. I'd say it's possible but certainly not an easy touch up job but you'll want to zoom in close, use very small clone stamp sizing for the delicate work and of course do all of that work on a duplicate layer in PS so that you're not actually messing with the original image. That way if you really mess it up you just trash the dupe layer and try again. If you get it where you want it you merge the layers and move onto other possible edits.

If parts of the bird itself were under the out of focus branch I probably wouldn't even try but it looks like you have the tiniest amount of wiggle room to possibly pull this off.

As an editing exercise you might as well try as that's how you'll learn what you can do and how you'll improve your touch up skills. But from a photography standpoint I'd keep looking for opportunities to get a cleaner line of sight on similar hummingbirds as with patience and time you'll get frame filling shots like that without the clutter to deal with.

It is definitely a nice looking juvenile hummingbird with a nice pose but if you keep looking for or perhaps feeding hummingbirds you'll get plenty of opportunities like that shot.
 
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I think you can pretty easily clone out the most problematic one on the left. I would leave the one on the right - it looks trickier and isn’t anywhere near as disruptive.
 
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I feel there is too much space in the upper left corner. The big dark branch cutting diagonally across the frame creates a natural frame for the bird. The area outside it doesn’t contribute, but detracts, to my eye.
The little bada$$’s expression is perfect!
 
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