Tri-colored Heron In Flight

[jprzybyla]

C&C welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for viewing.

[FrankMi]

Hi Joe! Great capture, nice coloring and detail. Although the background is busy, I feel you have enough separation with the existing sharpness, bokeh, and coloring so that the Heron stands out nicely. The square crop and lighting also work very well for you.

[Bobobird]

As Frank said, great capture.

[terrib]

Love it. Perfect timing and focus!

[ggt]

Beautiful! I agree the background could probably be worked, but the bird itself is just lovely!

[jprzybyla]

Hi Joe! Great capture, nice coloring and detail. Although the background is busy, I feel you have enough separation with the existing sharpness, bokeh, and coloring so that the Heron stands out nicely. The square crop and lighting also work very well for you.

Hi Frank, your comments are much appreciate. I would have loved to have a different background but I was photographing the bird perched close to the ground when it took flight. I had to switch to shutter priority and find the bird in the viewfinder. It was still close to the ground, thus the background. There was not much separation between the bird and the background so even the aperture of 5.6 only blurred it slightly. I could try to blur it more in post processing but that is difficult to do without it looking fake and artificial. I went with the square crop because the color and detail in the bird was so good I wanted it to show with a close crop. Thanks again Frank for taking time to view and comment.

[jprzybyla]

As Frank said, great capture.

Thanks Bobo.

[MilT0s]

Impressive Joe.

As others said you can work the background a bit. A suggestion is to try reducing the green luminescence slide in Lightroom or (and better) make green channel based mask in Photoshop to separate the bird and then lower the brightness and saturation of the background to taste. A vignetting could also work.

[jprzybyla]

Love it. Perfect timing and focus!

Thanks Terri, your kind words are appreciated. I shoot birds in flight at a high shutter speed, 1/2000 in this case. I set the camera to continuous focuse and shoot using the burst mode. I then pick the best to save. This one happens to be one of my favorites because of the color and detail. Thanks again for viewing and taking time to comment.

[jprzybyla]

Beautiful! I agree the background could probably be worked, but the bird itself is just lovely!

Thank you Gretchen, I appreciate you viewing and commenting on my image. I have worked on the background and will post the edit below.

[jprzybyla]

Impressive Joe.

As others said you can work the background a bit. A suggestion is to try reducing the green luminescence slide in Lightroom or (and better) make green channel based mask in Photoshop to separate the bird and then lower the brightness and saturation of the background to taste. A vignetting could also work.

Hello Miltos, thank you for viewing and commenting. I have taken the suggestions from you and others regarding the background. Posted below is the edit. Thanks again for your suggestions.

[jprzybyla]

Posted below is the edit of the image with work to subdue and blur the background. In Adobe Lightroom 4 I used the Adjustment Brush with Automask set to on to isolate the background from the bird. I destsaturated the green and blurred the background more by moving the Sharpness and Clarity sliders all the way to the left. Then as Miltos suggested I added a post crop vignette. I think the bird is now highlighted better, your opinions would be appreciated.

[ggt]

Hmmm, I think a background that was the opposite of the bird might help him pop out more. He is blue, so i wouldn't have a lot of blue in the background. But that is just me. He just doesn't seem as vibrant with the new background -could be my monitor.

[MilT0s]

I agree with Gretchen, you need to go with try and error with this one. Should be easy once you have a mask ready. Perhaps a reduction of the brightness, mostly the highlights, but not the saturation could work better. In any case I think you went too fa it but you are close!

[davidedric]

could be my monitor

Don't think it's you monitor, Gretchen, I feel the same about the two images - I prefer the first one.

Again, it's personal, but I like to see all wildlife in their environment, and the green background shows it's a bird for wet and even marshy conditions. The green and visible background isn't problem for me: the colours of the bird isolate it enough.

[FrankMi]

Perhaps something between the two backgrounds would have broader appeal?

[jprzybyla]

Thanks all for sticking with me and continuing to offer suggestions. I have read all of your comments and have another edit which I believe is more apealing. Thanks to the wonders of Lightroom it is easy to go back to the original and change it. Your continued thoughts would be appreciated.

[FrankMi]

Superb! I think you've nailed it!

[Dave Humphries]

Yup, missed it earlier (wasn't here) but the third works well for me.

[VR8]

Marvelous. Birds in flight are very difficult. I keep trying