Inspiration Needed - post photos shot on rainy and/or overcast days

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike. Your feedback is very helpful

I have to ask what an inverted S curve is, just and S curve backwards? I will try it out, and keep trying to get these moody bird shots.



Here is my try with what I think is an inverted S Curve. How did I do? to me it looks a little pink, and the head and the body are a slightly different hue because I had to select them separately.. then again the head of the swan was darker than the body in the first place

[Mike Buckley]

just an S curve backwards?

Yes.

it looks a little pink

I didn't see that but I also didn't compare the two versions side-by-side. The software that I use has a Curve tool that doesn't affect the color balance, so I'm not used to having to worry about that issue that can happen with other software.

Keep in mind that I'm no birding expert, so follow other people's advice if they happen to contradict mine. Even so, I envisioned the following version made by first applying the inverted S-curve only to the bird's body and then applying local contrast enhancement to all white parts of the bird, though only at 50% opacity to the neck and head.

Go back and forth between your latest version and mine to determine which look you like the best. The biggest part of post-processing is developing a sense for how you want the image to appear.





That required a pretty aggressive curve, something similar to the curve shown below.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike. Very helpful. I still have a lot to learn about editing. I like the softness of mine, seems more natural but I like the sharpness of yours as it shows the detail in the feathers to their best, and I like the colour in your edit better.