Say Ahhhhhh . . . (with repost)

Mike, One of your best Osprey's yet. My only nit is it appears to be a bit flat. Pump up the contrast in curves (or use levels and set a white point and black point). If needed, you can do just a highlight correction in H/S to tone down the whites if they are too hot (or set them lower in levels). Getting the black point will make this POP

Great pose and composition. :)

P.S. I downloaded and did the following just to see how it would work out: In Levels I set the black point for an area on the left wing that was the darkest point I found. In Curves, I created a slight "S" curve. In H/S I did a standard shadow recovery but in highlights I set the top slider to 78 and played around with the amount until I was please with the highlights. The Osprey really popped with these corrections.

Again, this is really a great Osprey image.

Per Mike's request, I uploaded the version I was working with yesterday. I think it needs a bit of lightening. This is a good example of how calibrated monitors vs. uncalibrated monitors affect the viewing. At home on my PS workstation's calibrated monitor, this version is brighter and looks to have the contrast I would like. At work on an uncalibrated monitor, it still looks a bit flat and when I checked it last night on another computer I have, it looked too bright.

Stunning Osprey image full of detail, Mike!

HUgh

Very nice portrait! Excellent dof, and I love his funny expretion! :)

Nice one Mike. I would like to see a bit less flash. A great expression.

Love this portrait! Absolutely gorgeous !!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :)

Beautiful shot, Mike! Excellent detail, pose, and exposure.

After bringing this image in PSE 2.0 and removing the color cast it suddenly "pops".

Nice work as usual!

-Mark

excellent portrait , great facial expression

Mike this is Awesome !!!! :) :) Do agree with Robert and should make a difference ..... :roll: you been processing too many DC images

A fine intimate portrait, Mike!
Love the expression and the stare ...

Killer expression and those eyes.... :roll:

I definitely think this is one of your best, Mike. Great expression and those breast feathers are gorgeous.

here's a repost with some of Robert's suggestions put to use...

Excellent shot Mike.

Your repost is too much for my taste. It's somewhere in the middle

Cheers

Peter

Mike,

I agree with Peter, you need to get somewhere between your repost above and the one I posted today. Ospreys can be a challenge getting the exposure, much less the contrast just right since they range from dark (almost black) to light (almost white) feathers.

If you are finding the whites are too high try Greg's recommendations in his article at http://www.naturescapes.net/092003/gd0903.htm which will help a lot. I have used it and it tames the highlights well. Also, when I use PSCS and the H/S tool to correct highlights, I open the tool and set the shadow sliders to zero and only work the highlights. Somethimes it makes a world of difference and sometimes not.

Hopes this helps. If you work on it some more, please repost.

Great portrait and quite animated with the open bill, nice one. I like the heart-shaped spots on the necklace, cool. Robert has made some great suggestions.