rrmerkov

I took quite a few shots at a local pond today. Here are shots of an egret and a sandhill crane. Any criticisms and helpful hints would be much appreciated.

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camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Since you are asking for feedback I am going to try to help you with both images. This is the way I handle my photography and it could be totally different to someone else since we are not all equal.
The first image is a great shot. The white heron is showing his pray while the exposure on the bright feathers is perfect. I just cropped to keep the bird off center, one of the rules of composition. I did the same with the sandhill, a difficult exposure that you rendered to perfection because the bird has a strong side or backlighting. I burned-in some of the middle tonalities, including those plants in the water while using Shadows-Highlights to slightly open to taste the shadow areas.

In my humble opinion you handled both shots very well. Composition only improves them.

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Irvingite Charles Loc: Irving, Tx

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

William shows some of the options for re-editing. The images report LR5, but most of the Detail sliders are at their defaults when I look at the enclosed EXIF details of the attachment. Consider these two topics to use all the enhanced capabilities of Lightroom:

Basics of noise processing

Basics of Lightroom Sharpening

Also, always look at your images at the 1:1 pixel-level. That full-screen view of the fine details of the images help you 'see' your cropping options for dramatic results such as William shows. Use the 'virtual copy' feature of LR to maintain different versions of the same image. The egret could be cropped again in an VC to 16:10 with the bird filling the entire screen and the legs cropped just before they enter the water, showing the excellent pixel-level details and sharpness of the bird capturing a small snack.

rrmerkov

Thanks very much for you criticism. I appreciate the time and work that you spent editing my photos.

rrmerkov

Hi I appreciate you comments. I don't know how to read the EXIF files to get processing data. I did use LR 5 to reduce noise and sharpen. I also used Topaz AI Denoise. I think that it did a great job.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Consider using <quote reply> to direct specific replies. You don't need to 'read' the EXIF data. Rather, just go into your image in Develop in LR and check the sliders. LR dumps many / most the edit slider 'positions' into the resulting JPEG via the export so I can 'see' your settings without seeing your LR workarea.

Your Sharpening settings are shown as:

Sharpen Detail : 25
Sharpen Edge Masking : 0
Sharpen Radius : +1.0
Sharpness : 50

These seem to be the default values for a RAW import to LR. Review the ideas in the link above, especially more sharpening around 75, using a mask around 85, a radius around 0.5 and a Detail around 10. Working on the original version, not after Denoise.

Your Luminance and Color Noise Reduction also read as the defaults. Consider the ideas in the link above for Noise processing in LR. Again, working on the original version, not after Denoise.

Look too at lowering the Highlights to 'pull' more detail out of the white of the bird and consider adjusting the WB lowering the overall K temp slightly to make a bit less yellow.

rrmerkov

Thanks, I was little bit worried about pushing the sliders too high and over-processing, so I just moved them little bit to the right. The defaults when I loaded the photos into Lightroom were Luminance Noise reduction 0, and sharpening at 25. Maybe I have reset the defaults without knowing it. Again thanks for the helpful information.

JRiepe Loc: Southern Illinois

Congratulations on your first post. The images are very nice. The ones reworked by Camerapapi are extremely nice.

jimvanells Loc: Augusta, GA

The photos are great, the slight changes in composition improve them even more. Well done!

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Great first posts, Merk.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

You got some very good information there both on composition and post processing. I think you made a great start, keep up the good work

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

I liked your first image very much, but your second image not so much. The background of your second image clutters the image stealing attention away from your subject, the beautiful bird. Additionally, I attended a presentation of a very fine bird photographer and he said (among other things) that "it's not polite to take a picture of a bird from behind". He was saying that, in general, a frontal view is usually better that a rear view.

Your first image is right on. The only thing I felt was needed was some finishing touches:
1) Crop: getting rid a lot of the extra space and focusing on the bird. But the crop should allow space in front of the bird for him to walk into.
2) Sharpening: I didn't see any problem with noise, but I tried sharpening a little more to bring out some additional feather details. It also sharpened the face/beak just a little also.
3) background exposure: I gradually reduced the brightness of the background from the bottom up. This provided additional exposure contrast between the egret and the water.
4) Color Cast: I used a blue filter to cool the overall image just a bit adding a little blue back into the water. The blue also provided a little more color contrast between the egret and the background especially the face.

Hope this helps
Mike

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tcthome Loc: NJ

In reply to you & canon's second reply showing the LR settings. I make another (I just started trying this)virtual copy of the original & just started messing around with/in LR6 trying to match Topaz DN for the sake of the learning to do it in LR. I'm pretty sure they do more than just reduce noise & sharpen. I had to go back up the basics panel & make a few more adjustments to get it to match or come close.
Do you try the different options in DN? I go back & forth in Topaz DN looking to see which one keeps as much detail as possible while reducing noise. With a few photos, LR did a better job of it.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Awesome ⭐⭐⭐