What gorgeous ducks. Guess I've never seen the female before. Because the focus is little bit fuzzy you might want to include more of the water and not crop quite so close? Maybe tone down the bright water behind the ducks? You did your best with an overexposed situation.
It's a little too obvious you selected the female's head and toned it down. Fur and feathers in auto selection are very tricky.   Posted: 01/13/2025 00:16:22

The back duck is very nice but I do not think the reflection helps. I love the colors. The forward duck is not sharp. if you have a single bird I think that would be better.   Posted: 01/13/2025 00:42:26

Ron, really like this image and the crop is perfect. I also like the way you caught them looking in one direction. I think it is a little soft so I did some sharpening, dodging and burning. What do you think?   Posted: 01/13/2025 13:43:09

The hen"s head was definitely selected....I missed the residuals of that step!
Indeed the image was a bit soft, probably mostly because of the heavy magnification.
I like the drake reflection; couldn't do too much with the hen's reflection for fear of producing an impossible reflection view. However, I may yet try as the hen's reflection is just complicated .
Tom, I like your improvements. Thanks   Posted: 01/14/2025 02:05:20

Ron, if you have a plugin such as Topaz Sharpen AI, you should be able to produce a well-sharpened image of both ducks. Great capture of the pair.   Posted: 01/14/2025 15:50:00

Ron, beautiful birds I've not seen before. The reflected colors in the water and color of the two ducks are striking. I like the position of both birds and that they look in the same direction. The crop is good. I think the sharpness of both birds is a bit soft and a another suggestion is to individually mask both birds and play with different adjustments, i.e. sharpen, texture, clarity, dehaze, exposure, etc. Maybe do the same with a separate mask on each eye. Tweaking adjustments of each bird may sharpen and create some separation from the birds and competing colors.
I did a little research to learn they can be seen in our area. I'll need to find out where they can be seen near me and look for them in the spring.
  Posted: 01/16/2025 21:32:43

Lovely pair. A variety that we don't see in UK. The colours in the background are a little distracting but there was not much that you could do about that.   Posted: 01/29/2025 08:06:46