Spotted Dove On The Beach

[mantarey]

Now that the Mastah seems to be in his best mentoring mode, I will certainly take advantage of this great opportunity to learn. So far from Bobby's post I've been seeing some finer points in PP work for the first time.

Anyway, got this Spotted Dove last Monday in Coastal Bay. I got interested when I saw the bird feeding along the beach at full frame distance I thought the foreground and the background looks very unusual and interesting for this bird and I'm trying my best to make it work.

Aside from the other things that needs to be improved, I'm keen on hearing about the brightness and contrast levels as I still have to get my monitor calibrated. Sharpness levels though a matter of taste can also be overdone and I'd like to know what the Mastah has to say too.

Thanks in advance for another learning experience.

[Romy Ocon]

It's processed excellently as posted, Rey! Colors as well as as contrast/brightness look great.

I'd crop a bit off the top to reduce the negative space and to place the head of the bird near a third point. You're right, sharpening is a matter of individual taste. For my taste, I'd add a USM of 120, 0.3, 1 on a luminosity layer and just erase areas with sharpening artifacts using a 20% opacity eraser brush.

For print, I'd probably push the midtones a bit to the right, say levels 0, 1.05, 255. Photo paper is passively lit, unlike LCDs which are backlit. If you print this as processed, the midtones would look a bit darkish.

[mantarey]

Thanks a lot Mastah Romy. Composition is always the hardest part for me. Anyway, if were able to retain the original dimension, how is this crop?

[Romy Ocon]

Yes, that crop would be fine for web display. For prints, it will be a bit tight - not much room for the bird to walk into, and if the frame takes up some space, the tip of the tail will be too close to the edge. Can you post the entire uncropped frame, just resized to say 1200x800?

[mantarey]

This is the only frame where I can crop to avoid showing the garbage from the beach. How would you take care of the unsightly things in the frame if you want to salvage this photo if this is a rarity? ;D
Same goes with the bright spots in the BG. This was converted from TIF in DPP and have not been touched with PS yet.

[Romy Ocon]

Oh, that plastic thing in front of the bird limits your cropping choices.

It depends now on your personal limit of how far you wish to clone.

Personally, I'd clone away the specular highlights in the BG. I'd have second thoughts on the plastic thing. If ever I decide to clone it out, it will only be partial like you did in the first post, to recover some space in front.

Here's my probable cropping/cloning approach. I haven't cloned out the specular highlights in the BG in this sample, but would've done it if the PP work is for real.

[mantarey]

Wow thanks for the prompt reply. I noticed you gave more space at the bottom than the top. I find it more pleasing, gave more depth to this image.

Thanks again Mastah Romy, interacting with you is always a nice learning experience.