Traveller_Jeff

Sometimes you just have to laugh. I often trudge through the local park, my Nikon D500 weighed down by my firmly attached Tamron 150-600 G2, hunting for birds, large or small, and, maybe because most days I get out mid afternoon, I often come away with next to nothing. A couple of days ago, I was passing by the nearby police precinct, carrying just my iphone 6s, when I felt the whoosh of strong wings brush by me. I turned around and perched on a fence just to my left was an immature redtail hawk. He just sat there, looking around, presumably on the prowl for his next meal of rat, completely ignoring me. I took several shots of this guy with the iphone, pointed him out to a couple of cops passing by at which they oohed and aahed, and left with the attached image in the camera. I did some post-processing in lightroom, which offered more options than Photoshop. Thought I'd share it with you. I'm not sure it helped. The first image is out of the camera; the second and third are after processing. An annoying yellow tinge kept creeping in, and I reduced it enough to protect what detail and original brown while minimizing the yellow. Comments welcome.

Expattyke

I think the second image is better. I might have damped down highlights/whites a little more, and possibly upped blacks or played with shadows.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Nice but somewhat blown out?

Traveller_Jeff

That's what I thought, too. In the original photo, the chest feathers were washed out, but the head was exposed perfectly. I tried to increase contrast on the chest with the whole menu of sliders available. I found dehaze to be helpful, as well as shadows which I toned down to -54. I worked on it for about half an hour which is a lot for me. If it were a RAW image, I'd have adjusted it in under 90 seconds, but it's a lot more difficult if working only with a jpg.

However, I just did a brush adjustment on the chest, leaving the head and everything else out of the oval.
I think it's a tad improved. Your thoughts?

Expattyke

Yes, it reduced the over-exposed area. Nice work.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Unfortunately, any part of an image blown out is not recoverable. Your rework did help to pull the available detail and texture tho. Well worth the effort. Been there, done that.

Traveller_Jeff

Thanks, Foxman and Expat. Appreciate your comments.

TJ

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Nice one on the hawk, too bad it was a chain link fence, there are also a lot of other distracting elements in the shot!

jpgto Loc: North East Tennessee

Intent on the next meal!!! Good one.