Female Cardinal (Edited) please critique

[FocalFrenzy]

I tried to balance the colors some, with Photo Explosion (It's the only photo editing program I have). Is there some way to achieve this effect on camera? Thanks.

[dande]

Hi, cute photo! I think, that now the snow is blown out (detail loss due to pixels being too white) at parts, and maybe just me, but it is a little green. Also, if you crop the bird to the left, leaving her a little more to "look at".

[mhuk05]

If you camera has a custom white balance setting you can take a photo of the snow, set it as your white point and then take photos of objects in the snow.

The post processing way (in photoshop) is to add a levels adjustment layer and set the white point for the photo.

I prefer your other photo for the snow but the bird is clearer here.

[FocalFrenzy]

Thanks for the input. I'll work on my post processing skills.

[jiminyClickit]

FocalFrenzy,

This is a good photo to work on, and your reward is a portrait of a fine bird. If you take some time to separate background from bird, and place eye on a third layer, then all can get the lightening and contrast they need. Snow is basically left as-is, after color balance is achieved. Eye is lightened and saturated some, and sharpened. Hope you'll continue this one.

[FocalFrenzy]

I love the fix. Photo Explosion doesn't have a layering option that I'm aware of. I will see if there is anything about layering on their web-tutorial. My problem was that if I got the snow white enough, the bird looked washed out. I need to learn how to adjust portions of instead of the whole image. I'll keep working on it. Thank you for your help.

[cjaegel@hotmail.com]

Originally Posted by FocalFrenzy

I love the fix. Photo Explosion doesn't have a layering option that I'm aware of. I will see if there is anything about layering on their web-tutorial. My problem was that if I got the snow white enough, the bird looked washed out. I need to learn how to adjust portions of instead of the whole image. I'll keep working on it. Thank you for your help.

I recently downloaded Gimp off the internet it is an open source photo editing software. It is almost a knock off of Photoshop, I like it better, its free and has hundreds of plugins with it. You might give it a try, there are lots of tutorials online for Gimp also. Just google Gimp and you will be off and running.

[FocalFrenzy]

Thank you. I've already downloaded GIMP. (4 days ago) I just haven't figured out all of the options yet. I'm sure it will improve the quality of my shots tremendously.