Colorful winter Birds in snow, C@C critique would be grateful !

[Whistletown Wilds]

The weather in New England this winter has been unusually cold and snowy, but I was able to photograph quite a few small birds, while practicing with my new canon 100/400, is ,usm II.

[Chri5]

Nice series and kudos for braving the snow to get these. number two is my favourite though the bird is a little out of focus to me

[Geoff F]

Yes, interesting well composed scenes, particularly those with a bit of foliage.

[Rebel]

Nice shots, 2 & 3 are my favourites, although as Chris has said the bird is slightly out of focus in 2.

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[bnnrcn]

I like all of them. IMO the images with foliage need some PP .

[Whistletown Wilds]

Don't know why the cardinal looks soft so I sharpened a little bit!

[Whistletown Wilds]

Nice series and kudos for braving the snow to get these. number two is my favourite though the bird is a little out of focus to me

Thank You It was a cold long winter

[Brownbear]

Hi Sherwood,

Just to say that these are lovely for me for the beautiful soft light, nicely exposed and gorgeous colours.

My favourite is also the Cardinal, the bird in the sharpened image looks wonderful but the snow looks too sharp to me. If you have a post processing program that would allow you to sharpen just the bird and leave the snow as it was in the original, I would give it a try. Beautiful image!

My 2nd favourite is the 2nd image for the clear background isolating the beauty of the bird and the colour.

[DanK]

Great shots.

Re Binnur's suggestion: I think a number of them could use postprocessing. They have a lack of pop because of a lack of contrast. You could get a noticeable improvement with a single edit: use a curves tool to move the black point up and add some contrast. You could do the same with other tools. I hope you won't mind, but I have taken the liberty of making an edit to the one that Binnur mentioned.

Here is the edit:



and here is the result:



I did a similar but less extreme edit to the blue jay. Just moving the black point up made a big difference.

I hope this is helpful.

[NorthernFocus]

Nice set. You made the most of the snow opportunity. Nicely done.

[flashback]

Your edit of the Cardinal is much improved and overall, I think it's a really great, winter shot. What I would expect to see on a calender, or on your wall. See if you can do the same on #3, the female blue bird (also a very cool shot.)

[bnnrcn]

+1 to Jack.

I also like Dan's edit for the last image but IMO the greens are competing with the birds. So I would desaturate them a bit and reduce the highlights on the snow in order to make the birds stand out more. Or I would apply the contrast curve to different parts of the image with different opacities by chancing the opacity of the brush. ( I don't know which software you use , I have PS CC but I think it is possible to do it with LR too).

[JR1]

Show off...........................

Lovely shots, colours, snow is white, chrisp, contrast

[Barbara Ponder]

Nice shots the cardinal in the snow is especially beautiful.

[Whistletown Wilds]

Hi Sherwood,

Just to say that these are lovely for me for the beautiful soft light, nicely exposed and gorgeous colours.

My favourite is also the Cardinal, the bird in the sharpened image looks wonderful but the snow looks too sharp to me. If you have a post processing program that would allow you to sharpen just the bird and leave the snow as it was in the original, I would give it a try. Beautiful image!

My 2nd favourite is the 2nd image for the clear background isolating the beauty of the bird and the colour.

Thank you

[Whistletown Wilds]

Nice series and kudos for braving the snow to get these. number two is my favourite though the bird is a little out of focus to me

Thank you!

[Whistletown Wilds]

Nice set. You made the most of the snow opportunity. Nicely done.

Thank you!

[Whistletown Wilds]

Nice shots the cardinal in the snow is especially beautiful.

Thank you!

[Whistletown Wilds]

Great shots.

Re Binnur's suggestion: I think a number of them could use postprocessing. They have a lack of pop because of a lack of contrast. You could get a noticeable improvement with a single edit: use a curves tool to move the black point up and add some contrast. You could do the same with other tools. I hope you won't mind, but I have taken the liberty of making an edit to the one that Binnur mentioned.

Here is the edit:



and here is the result:



I did a similar but less extreme edit to the blue jay. Just moving the black point up made a big difference.

I hope this is helpful.

Thank you for your time and help!