About the Image(s)

I often see pelicans and cormorants congregate in the winter in a park close to my home. It was late-morning when I took some shots of these shore birds in December and I wasn’t too pleased with the outcomes, particularly the lighting. However, this particular one appealed to me because I really liked the warm interaction between this one pelican and the double crested cormorant standing right next to it. The cormorant seemed to have said something that pleased the pelican. The contrast in their color and size I also found striking. So I decided to salvage the image and give it a shot in Photoshop. First thing I did was to get rid of the two other cormorants. I then used ACR to work on the cormorant first and adjusted the exposure, contrast, highlights and the shadow. I also increased the vibrance. I understand that juvenile double crested cormorants tend to be browner than black. Then I worked on the pelican also using ACR to make the same adjustments. Then I brought down the highlights in the background and adjusted its color also in ACR. I used the remove tool to eliminate a lot of the other distractions, e.g., the “poop” on the rock. Finally, I used Generative Expand to increase the left side of the image to recover what was lost when I cropped the two other cormorants and added just a tad on the top of the image. I’m glad I didn’t delete the image.

I shut this with my Sony A7III and the settings were f6.3, 1/400 s, ISO 200, @ 204 mm.

As always, I’d appreciate any comments and/or suggestions.