LC Boros
About the Image(s)
Every year we have at least one pair of both Western Scrub Jays and Steller’s Jays nesting on our property. The fledglings will often meet at the birdbaths and the ensuing results then vary. This was shot from my office window which looks out over the north garden when that bath was in full shade.
Yes this is “hand of man” but I wanted to see what I could do with layers to take this image from its original state to something that showed more of the detail of each bird. I worked the image too much and so discarded everything and started again and instead tried to just do a few simple things.
I upped the contrast, saturation and brightness a tiny bit overall as well as dropped the highlights down. Then working with masks I isolated the foreground and jays where I increased the exposure, contrast and brightness a bit more. A second smaller mask used the same nudging for the face and back of the Steller's Jay: the key was to remember these are both young birds and are thus not yet in their adult colors, so keeping the greys true was the goal.
I tested out Topaz but was very unhappy with the output of Mask AI. Thus all work is done in CaptureOne.
Gear:
Canon EOS 5D MarkIV / Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Settings:
ISO 3200
Shutter 1/1250s
F/5.6
Auto bracketed
Original image sans mask work here:
https://www.stega.org/wp/2019/05/22/outside-my-window-bathing-jays-8-12/
This round’s discussion is now closed!
6 comments posted
For me the very bright upper background is a distraction and I feel the bird on lthe right, which is the most interesting of the two, has its eye lost in shadow. I would suggest luminosity masking layers to correct this,a nd bet the entire image correctly exposed. Also, I woudl consider a little tighter crop. Try it and see what you think.   Posted: 11/11/2020 11:48:55
I brought it into Lightroom and found that if I added black to the bird while reducing contrast I was able to bring out a lot more detail. I also added a touch of black to the Stellar's eye and reduced the highlights of the entire image, plus added a slight vignette.   Posted: 11/11/2020 18:39:01