On Friday I spent the morning at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge just north of Ogden, Utah. In processing the shots I noticed a high-key effect. We have a serious smoke problem and the light produced is much like looking into a fluorescent light. The road going around the major marsh places me facing the sun in attempting most BIFs facing into that marsh.

I tried various steps in the post processing of these shots. Please let me know what you think of the backgrounds and any other suggestions or comments you may have.

As aways, downloads give the best view.

TECH NOTES: Sony 100 - 400mm, f/5.6/6.3 G lens with a Sony 2X tc on a Sony a7C body. These shots at 1024mm and ISO 1000.

I agree.... These are all nice images with a lot of potential, but as they are displayed here they are not "high key".

This is nitpicking, but...

In a histogram high key images will be biased strongly toward the right side and possibly even go "off the scale" to the right. In low key lighting it's the opposite and a histogram would be heavily biased toward the left. There's a relatively narrow dynamic range to these images, relatively few shadows and a "minimalist" look that also can be done with high and low key. But there are no "pure white" or "brightness" or extreme highlights dominating your images, which are characteristics of high key lighting.

If you look a a histogram of any of your images it's very centered with a narrow dynamic range that doesn't reach into either the high or low tonalities. That's "flat lighting".... not high key or low key.

For example, here's a high key macro shot I did some years ago...



In the image above the background was a pretty unattractive concrete patio. I used a high key exposure to make that background essentially disappear.

Some descriptions and comparisons of high key and low key lighting effects:

https://www.creativelive.com/blog/high-key-vs-low-key-lighting/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Dynamic+Search+Ads+l_T1+5459&utm_content=507189467404&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjo2JBhCRARIsAFG667WSZRojXoZd_k6qJeb_czdx1e-du4EeUwx1aCAVmZZRsYOHJCB-9-kaAizqEALw_wcB

https://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-light-shoot-edit-high-key-photography/

https://shutterstoppers.com/high-key-photography-natural-light

It's possible your images look "high key" to you, if you're viewing them on an uncalibrated computer monitor. When not calibrated, most monitors are way too bright for accurate photo rendition... plus all monitors "clip" the extremes (none can render "pure black" or "pure white"). Viewing your images on an uncalibrated monitor will usually make the images appear much brighter than they actually are. Uncalibrated monitors basically "fool" their users into incorrectly adjusting their images too dark. Then they're surprised when they make a print or view their images on a calibrated monitor.

Just in case that's what has happened (or even if it's not), your images can easily be made high key in post processing. I hope you don't mind... Below is the result of a couple very simple exposure tweaks to your image #2 in Photoshop (using a calibrated monitor).

There's nothing wrong with the images as you've shown them. In fact, they're quite nice. They just aren't "high key", as described. And I'm not necessarily suggesting the version of the image below is "better", just that it's more truly "high key"...