Gears Picture & Pigeon

[shruggy63]

Exif:
Pentax K-x
Exp: 1/40
F8
ISO 200
Focal Length 32.5
Flash Fired!
Anyone got any good ideas for removing the ill-advised fill flash reflection? Also I'd like to draw more attention to the bored looking pigeon, how would I lighten it without losing it? I've cropped it a fair bit, would you go more or less?

[Jonbar18]

Honestly I didn't even notice the pigeon, I had to look. If you want to lighten just it, you can try burning (or is it dodge that lightens it, I can never remember).
As for the flash, I can see you were shooting with the flash straight on. It might be a little tough to remove it, but for future reference, check out this link Bruce shared earlier : Angle of incidence

[shruggy63]

Thanks for the comments. I'll try a closer crop that brings the pigeon in. It's lucky the pigeon is in a square so I can do a rectangular select & adjust it in its own layer. Hopefully,,,

[crockny]

Try another crop with less below the large panel and include more to the right of the pigeon so it can follow the rule of thirds on the upper right ...

[shruggy63]

Thanks I'll try that. I tried boosting the light on the pigeon but it just looked like he'd been badly papped

[Krusty79]

I feel like a broken record saying this, but if you shot RAW, you could make one jpg for the bird and one for the rest of the shot and use a layer mask to blend the exposures. In my experience, that works better than dodging/burning.