African Crown Crane - Captive

Very nice. Love the light on this guy since normally the colors are cooler than here. Nice to get a head on pose with the crown facing you. Just a bit more USM would make this guy really jump.

Rich

A great pose on this beautiful bird. Love the BG. The light looks a little contrasty with the blacks being blocked out and the neck being a little hot. Cool shot.

Welcome to NS Birds Forum. This is an excellent first post. The colors and detail are excellent. The composition is great.

I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Some good advice has been given. I do like the composition of this one. A beautiful bird and well seen.

Thanks.

Got two more shots of this beautiful bird: here

Cheers,

What an interesting looking bird!!!! I like this shot overall, and I think that several others have it on some of the very minor nits!!!

Congrats!!

The light is a little bright but that crown looks awesome! Some curves work on this one would tone down the neck and bring up the blacks. Do you mind if I give it a shot and re-post it?

Greg Downing wrote:The light is a little bright but that crown looks awesome! Some curves work on this one would tone down the neck and bring up the blacks. Do you mind if I give it a shot and re-post it?

sure, will like to see it Greg... ^^

Thanks!

Just a quick curves adjustment is a good start in reducing contrast. There is much more than can be done here, but I'll just explain the one process.

Below is the image and a picture of the curve that I applied to it. The two upper anchors in the curve are where the values lie for the neck area, the lower one is adjusting the shadows. Adjusting the highlights by puling down on the curve lowers their values, making them darker and as I pull up on the lower part of the curve I brighten the values in the shadow areas. This is less blunt than a levels adjustment because other values follow the curve and are adjusted accordingly.

I also did a quick color correction by zooming in on the only area of the image I know needs to be white and setting it to neutral by adjusting the RGB color values. Can you guess where I zoomed? I also adjusted the black point above the eye using the same method. There is still a lot of black that can be brought out in the head but you get the idea.

Nice work Greg, thanks a lot!

Bird looks like shun and like shun it is (was) too shiny )
Greg did good job but remember that you did a picture that is a piece of a great job.

Cool bird, very nice shot.

Lovely bird, great pompadour!!! Congrats!!

Nice shot to work with. I think Greg's repost shows you what can be done to help your presentation. I like the way you framed the bird and its posture. Good work.