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gneto Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #1 · Southern Crested Caracaras Hello everyone, Southern Crested Caracaras are really shy and hard to approach. Even using your car as a blind, they'll often fly away before you are able to come close enough to shoot, especially adults. I once had two juveniles curious and dumb enough to approach me while I was crawling, guess I made an interesting sight for them ... but that only happened once. The norm is for them to go away as soon as a human or a car approaches. The bird in these 2 photos allowed me to come closer than usual using my car, but I couldn't figure out why. I really like these 2 images, especially the second one with the nice texture provided by the grass, and would appreciate to hear other people's opinions on them. Critique obviously very welcome, and feel free to edit them as you please 420mm f/5.6, ISO 140, 1/1000s 420mm f/5.6, ISO 180, 1/1000s Dec 15, 2012 at 02:58 AM

ben egbert Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #2 · Southern Crested Caracaras The first is my favorite.I might soften up or clone out the broad line above its head. Nicely done. Dec 15, 2012 at 03:08 AM

sbeme Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #3 · Southern Crested Caracaras Fine images. A bird I hope to see on a future Florida trip. As Ben said, image improves with the OOF line above the head cloned out. My PS skills are not good enough and perhaps yours are or others would share their strategy. I would also fix the OOF colored area at the bottom of the stump. My thinking is some combo of healing brush at normal mixed with healing brush at color, but I am not sure. Scott Dec 15, 2012 at 03:34 AM

Bob Jarman Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #4 · Southern Crested Caracaras Never having tried birding, but having dabbled with sports, I can appreciate the skills required - lovely images. Regards, Bob Dec 15, 2012 at 04:06 PM

ben egbert Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #5 · Southern Crested Caracaras Question. After looking at this, I am thinking the first image has a blade of grass in front of the bird, that extends top to bottom (the feature I mentioned). If true it is so out of focus as to be nearly invisible. I have had this happen to me and it is very hard to fix 100%. This was done so well I nearly missed it. Dec 15, 2012 at 04:26 PM

RustyBug Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #6 · Southern Crested Caracaras Took a stab at the blades of grass (stump, breast, bg) ... likely not ideal, but it might be a mild improvement, possibly minimizing some of the distraction they were providing. Dec 15, 2012 at 09:19 PM

gneto Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #7 · Southern Crested Caracaras Thank you Ben, Scott, Bob and Kent for the feedback. ben egbert wrote: Question. After looking at this, I am thinking the first image has a blade of grass in front of the bird, that extends top to bottom (the feature I mentioned). If true it is so out of focus as to be nearly invisible. I have had this happen to me and it is very hard to fix 100%. This was done so well I nearly missed it. Yup, there is a blade - or maybe more than one. And yes, pretty hard to fix. Here's my attempt to incorporate all suggestions received: Dec 17, 2012 at 08:28 PM

sbeme Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #8 · Southern Crested Caracaras Fix looks great! The stump was the challenge. What was your workflow/strategy? Scott Dec 18, 2012 at 12:07 AM

gneto Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #9 · Southern Crested Caracaras Thanks Scott! In Lightroom, I used a local adjustment on the whole stump with -100 saturation so I would lose the color, and then +100 contrast, +55 clarity, +94 sharpness, +38 noise reduction, all of these to try and re-introduce the stolen contrast/sharpness to the stump. I'm kinda lucky it's a gray stump... made things easier Dec 18, 2012 at 03:02 AM

RustyBug Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #10 · Southern Crested Caracaras +1 @ very nice work on the stump. Dec 18, 2012 at 03:11 AM

sbeme Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #11 · Southern Crested Caracaras gneto wrote: Thanks Scott! In Lightroom, I used a local adjustment on the whole stump with -100 saturation so I would lose the color, and then +100 contrast, +55 clarity, +94 sharpness, +38 noise reduction, all of these to try and re-introduce the stolen contrast/sharpness to the stump. I'm kinda lucky it's a gray stump... made things easier Wow, I wouldnt have thought of using LR for this! And, as a plus, reduced saturation of the trunk adds to the focus on the bird and enjoyment of the background colors. Scott Dec 18, 2012 at 08:34 AM

gneto Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #12 · Southern Crested Caracaras sbeme wrote: Wow, I wouldnt have thought of using LR for this! Well perhaps someday you'll be as lazy as I was when I thought "I'm just gonna try this in LR, I don't feel like opening photoshop right now"... some of mankind's greatest breakthroughs come from pure laziness, like cars, e-commerce with next-day delivery, and obviously the remote control Dec 19, 2012 at 02:51 AM

sbeme Offline • • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #13 · Southern Crested Caracaras Hey, I got the laziness thing under good control. I do 90+% in LR currently. I generally turn to PS when significant cloning is required, or if I use a Nik filter that I want added as a layer rather than as a permanent modification of a LR exported file. Scott Dec 19, 2012 at 03:15 AM

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