Another Double Crested Cormorant

Hi, Rory! Image editing as you have done is fine when disclosed. And I think you did a good job - I have a hi-res monitor and it is picking up only a few barely perceptible artifacts around the bird.

Great comp and detail. To take it all a little further, a bit more USM on the bird might make the details stand out even better, and a smart blur on the green background would smooth it out a bit. Please note, these "nits" are really minor, you had done a great job in catching a very pleasing shot.

(If you need/would like any more info on the smart blur step, feel free to email me.)

wow,
I have been trying to get this close for a long time. Great stalking. Your work on the background shows just fine on my monitor.
This is delightful. The eye is stunning.

Great Cormorant!!!

Image:
Heather spilled the beans as to the minor nits, I agree!!!
Congrats on the PS work!, Nice !!!

Heather Forcier wrote:Great comp and detail. To take it all a little further, a bit more USM on the bird might make the details stand out even better, and a smart blur on the green background would smooth it out a bit. Please note, these "nits" are really minor, you had done a great job in catching a very pleasing shot.

I appreciate the help Heather. I will experiment with smart blur and drop you a line.

Heather, how about a smart blur article? I'd be interested and you wouldn't have to p-mail all of us. Rory, great image.

An article is a good idea, although someone would have to write it instead of me. I just know where the features are and I play around with the settings until I get the effect I want.

In case anyone is interested, simply put, I just select the background - easy to do with a clean, fairly even toned background like this. I modify my selection to make sure I adequately pull it away from the edges of the bird. Then I select Filter>Blur>Smart Blur. I consistently select High as the quality setting, but everything else I do based on how it looks. If you click the "hand" on the little preview pane, you can toggle the effect of the blur on and off. I usually try to move the preview to an area at the edge of the bird, so I can see if there are any negative effects applying the blur to the selected area.

One thing to be careful of is overdoing the effect. The blur looks nice but it can remove some wanted details if too much is applied.

Hope this helps!

Great close-up. A little post processing as Heather mentions would really make it sing.

Cool headshot Rory.