A little Birdie Told Me ...

[fuzzyframes]

OK, worked on these little critters a bit more for getting them to pop a little better from the last set that I posted..

A little Nuthatch


A little Chick A Dee

[grasshopper]

I like the chickadee image, but both look very good to me.

[Stevewebb]

A definite improvement Fuzzy. Good work.

They are still looking a little soft although the chick a dee is much better.

Are you doing much post processing on these at all. I think with a bit of selective sharpening and some contrast you will see an improvement in the final image.

I hope you don't object but I have worked on your image a bit to try and demonstrate. Working with a low resolution file grabbed off the screen is always a challenge but I think it demonstrates what can be achieved.

I sharpened the whole image first using unsharp mask, then used the sharpen brush to go around the edges of the bird and the eye to make them pop a bit more. Finally I added some contrast into the whole image by using what we call the "Jiro" technique. This is creating a black and white layer of the same image and changing the blend mode to overlay (actually in this case I used soft light and dropped the opacity to 49%).

[fuzzyframes]

I don't mind you modifying the image at all, if I did, it would be stated. Especially not to show the point that you making. I am a visual learner anyway.

OK, well normally I try to do very little in the way of post processing and keep the image mostly as short with my adjustments being to cropping, contrast and clarity.

What application are you using for your post production editing? Right now I am just using Adobe's Lightroom on the images. I was trying to stay out of Photoshop if I could, mostly because I have a hard time getting enough time to do the image any real justice in PS.

[Stevewebb]

Sorry for the delayed response Fuzzy.
I used Photoshop CS6 for the editing, mainly because that is my go to software for any adjustments. I don't think I have done anything here that couldn't be achieved in lightroom though using the selective adjustment brush.

These days lightroom is pretty much all you need for most edits but I have got so used to PS that I just can't drag myself over to Lightroom.

[fuzzyframes]

No worries Stevewebb.
Chrisc gave me a glass problem I have been trying to figure out so I have been a little distracted.

I thought you were doing the edits in PS. I used to do most of my edits in PS as well, then I looked at what I was doing 95% of the time and noted that LR did it in much less time and much faster then I could in PS (macros excluded), so I have been doing most there, kind of a way to break my habit of spending many hours on a single image in PS.

I will have to pay a little more attention in LR and see if I can come up with an way of creating about the same sharpening. Last I looked, LR does not have layers, so 'Jiro' may be a bit more challenging. Or I may use LR to select which ones I should drop into PS and work on it there.

Thanks.