Pllease C&C my bird

WizofLight · Mar 6, 2012

Took this awhile ago and trying to practice my lightroom skills, can you guys give me come C&C. One thing that frustrates me is the picture looks much better in lightroom than on hosted on the web. The pic seems to look darker and colors a little washed. The color profile is sRGB which is what other people said to use.

I think the rocks cause a distraction from the bird. Let me know how I can make this picture better.

dxqcanada · Mar 6, 2012

The bird gets lost in the surroundings.
The enhancements to the overall image become more interesting to the eye than the bird.

fokker · Mar 6, 2012

The background looks a bit overprocessed bordering on fake in places (the green bush at the top for example), and the bird does not stand out at all. the purple in the water looks weird. I would try some selective desaturation and blurring/de-sharpening and clarity reduction on the background.

SCraig · Mar 6, 2012

It's so oversaturated and busy that I had trouble even finding the bird at first. If the bird is the subject it should be woat catches the viewer's eye, not the background.

dxqcanada · Mar 6, 2012

Can you post the un-edited image ?

WizofLight · Mar 6, 2012

Feel Free to edit it.

PapaMatt · Mar 6, 2012

The bird blends in beautiful with the background. maybe a longer lens to capture just the bird with a background that has good bokeh to it.

Joel_W · Mar 7, 2012

I can only echo what others have already said: the bird is the subject, but it's way too small. The edited version is over saturated, too dark, contributing to an all ready too busy photo. I Would start over by 1st cropping, then go from there. Looking forward to seeing your new edit.

Austin Greene · Mar 8, 2012

I'm sorry, but what you just put up for your first image is barely even a photograph anymore. Processing is meant to ENHANCE photographs, not create them, thats the photographers job alongside their camera. If your first image isn't good enough after a few exposure adjustments, noise reduction, and sometimes maybe a crop, then you didn't do your job of capturing the image in the first place.

Post production is not just cranking all the special effects dials to max and boosting saturation. From the looks of it, you've got a great place to shoot birds, now just get out there and come back with a photo you can be proud of with minimal post processing.

WizofLight · Mar 9, 2012

togalive said:
I'm sorry, but what you just put up for your first image is barely even a photograph anymore. Processing is meant to ENHANCE photographs, not create them, thats the photographers job alongside their camera. If your first image isn't good enough after a few exposure adjustments, noise reduction, and sometimes maybe a crop, then you didn't do your job of capturing the image in the first place.

Post production is not just cranking all the special effects dials to max and boosting saturation. From the looks of it, you've got a great place to shoot birds, now just get out there and come back with a photo you can be proud of with minimal post processing.

thanks!!