Egret C & C Please. I love the lighting of this, but what can I do to make this pop more? Or should I just leave it alone?

No. 1 - Original post with Lightroom processing
No. 2 - Curves and levels adjustment and post sharpening using CS3
No. 3 - Right out of DPP only. Just conversion from Raw to Jpeg

in photoshop, i usually do 2 things to make my subjects pop. it has to do with adjusting the contrast. i first adjust the curves and introduce a slight s wave to the line. i then go to levels. i will pull the left and middle triangles at the bottom a bit closer together. however with this shot, it will be tough because you have a subject with mixed lighting. parts of the egret is in the shadow and part of the wings are in direct light. when you adjust the contrast, it will accentuate the difference in exposure between those 2 areas. play around with it and see what you can get. i would be careful with using shadow/highlights on this shot because it was shot against a clear blue sky which is prone to halos.

- hung

Yeah, it might be alot of work, if you darkened the shadows for detail because the face might be too dark. And it might also become a screaming color. I like it the way it is, but maybe a tad of reduced saturation before you darken or contrast it. Otherwise you'd end up with blown out whites+too much color too. Hard to say.

This is lovely JoJo.

The formula for pop is contrast and sharpness. I agree regarding using curves to add some contrast with an S curve. After doing this if you want to bring out the feather detail more, open curves again and click on the bright part of the wing and note the spot on the curve. Then click on a dark overlap line and note the spot. Next, click on the location on the curve where the bright spot is and drag it up a touch. Next clock on the dark spot and drag it down a touch. This will make the feather detail jump out. You can also experiment on sharpening a touch more.

This is a lovely photo.

Morris

Did the adjustment as stated above. Thanks guys. Tell me what you think.

JoJo - look good. I like the adjusted version. Hung and Morris are right on!