Guess I might have tried to leave the background as it was but to tone down the rather harsh light on the birds themselves which I guess would have the effect of lessening the overall contrast? I say 'try' of course because I've got no idea how that would turn out lol
Thanks Etienne
white or highlights - once they are "blown" they are "blown" …….. not much you can do as there is nothing there to adjust
Are the white bits on the wings blown then? I thought they might be white feathers or something but I'm not familiar with the bird :\
It is more the result of the sun's reflection on their feather structure
It was a very bright day, I was in a canoe, using a Nikon 300 f4 (non VR), lens, so I set the Av at f4 to get a high shutter speed because of movement - the shutter speed was 1/2000th sec at ISO 400 and +1EV because of the extreme shadows along the river bank
Lots of people think bright sun light is good for taking images - the reverse is generally true …….. just IMHO
Look at the eyes they appear to be much more alive in the original than in the processed image.
So lets get this right Bill, you are in a canoe with the son doing the hard work whilst you are sat back photographing these beauties it's a hard life eh
Original image for me i'm afraid, the edits have taken away the catchlights in the eyes and all adjustments look like they were global (ie a single layer)
In CS i would be looking at a minimum of three separate layer adjustments for a image like this.