2 Cormorant and 2 fish dinner

[jeeperman]

I am amazed at the size fish these guys can get down. These two fish are small in comparison to the carp one took just as I arrived.

[Bobobird]

Great catch.

The blue water is too blue, tone it down a bit and the dark bird will stand out better.

[jprzybyla]

Hi Paul...I took the liberty to edit your first image to demonstrate Bobo's suggestion. I desaturated the blue water (it must have been a very blue sky for that much blue reflection) and I used a reverse curve in the tone adjustments to further de-emphasize the water. Then I brightened the black color of the Comorant (interesting...here the Comorant is more brown). I hope you do not mind my edit, I agreed with Bobo's comments.

[jeeperman]

Thanks to the both of you. I get where you are coming from and it does look more normal. The combination of sky color and angle of the sun was such that the color was pretty intense. I did not add color and actually had toned it down a little already.lol I had several very intense colored shots that day with fresh spring color in the trees and a somewhat low sun.Although I do see the benefit in this particular image of toning things down from the true scene. Joe, You have even brought a bit of color out in the fish. Thanks for the suggestions and edit.

[Geoff F]

Excessive over blue shots is something which I frequently get, Paul, it's impossible to avoid at some camera angles.

I find the best way of correction is to use Curves and reduce the blue channel a little, particularly the shadows.

Working with adjustment layers and altering the blend mode so luminosity, colour, saturation, etc are applied independently often works better.

ps. I remember seeing one of these birds which had caught a flounder but couldn't swallow it because of the fish shape. After a struggle the bird managed to get it ashore but eventually was robbed of it's dinner by some black-backed gulls.

[Dizzy]

The Cormorants eat salmon and steelhead smolt by the tens-of-thousands, so around here they typically get rocks thrown at them instead of their pic taken.

Looks like the ones you captured are scarfing down on some perch. I would
love to see one choke on a carp...serve their butts right for all the steelhead babies
they've eaten over the years...

[Bobobird]

Excellent edit Mike.
Thanks Geoff for some pp pointers - except curves I have not tried individual layers for toning down before. Will try that.

One other reason these birds are not well-liked is their tree-killing poo.

[jeeperman]

Yes, thank you Geoff. I think my problem is simply that I always have a hard time going away from this color blue. It is one of my favorites. lol It just takes me a while to come around to actually making it right rather than purdy. lol