Sorry about getting back to you late. Had an artist's reception yesterday evening for a show. And the evening before had to prep and print 2 images for our annual juried photoclub contest. Been busy busy busy.
When I first opened your thread, I began by reading your account of the shot and the post processing. The image of the woodpecker was visible in the bottom half of my screen. My very first impressions were...
- What an excellent portrait of a bird. Not the boring old shot you often come across, taken in direct sunlight, from a poor angle, with no special attributes other than it was in focus. Kinda like if a person had taken a picture of an ordinary stop sign out their car window.
- Instead, I was treated to the amazing image of your Red-bellied Woodpecker, taking a moment out of its day to ponder the rest of the afternoon. The wonderful angle of the light, with the bird looking off into it, creates a special mood ordinarily reserved for professional portrait photography of human beings. What a moment captured. It's what makes the photo.
- I also immediately noted that the exposure, color and contrast were spot on. And that the post processing that you described was Exactly how I would have handled it. Exactly.
- And the last of the first impressions was that I had better finally order that DH1758. What a sterling example of that lens.
Then I scrolled down.
And the photograph that I described above simply vanished into the ether.
The picture grew flat. The drama was gone. The color became radioactive (especially in the red head, the iris of the eye, and the bark on the tree on the left). And moreover the body feathers grew that synthetic "hatched" look typical of oversharpening.
Sharpening is probably one of the hardest aspects of post processing for the novice to get right. I look back at some of my first images and see it all over the place. It's just too easy to try to make up for other shortcomings in technique or equipment by sliding that Sharpening slider a bit further right. As you develop a more discerning eye, you'll be able to look back at your own early PP technique and spot the obvious flaws. I do with mine all the time.
One thing to keep in mind when sharpening is that not all parts of the subject need be perfectly sharp. Sometimes even, having only one point in perfect focus is entirely sufficient for that photo (in portraits, it's often just the eyes). In fact, the term "Focal Point" is used to describe that very concept.
So to my eye, having the head and shoulders of the bird sharp and in perfect focus is all my eye needs to see (to know that the rest of the bird in shadow is also very sharp). I simply do not need to see the bird in its entirety for my mind to complete the picture.
Now if you were shooting this photo for a textbook, you might want to lighten the image as you did, to make all details clear. That's why many images in textbooks to this day are often still done in pen or pencil, because the inherently variable factor of lighting is removed. But for pure aesthetics, I think that the dramatic lighting is key to the great success of this image.
If you do want to tweak your original, I wouldn't suggest removing the tree on the left (it frames the bird nicely), but rather set your "Burning-in" tool to about 5% opacity (Mid-Tones), and run it over the tree to tone it down some.
That would be my choice.
However, the others are correct in saying that whatever manipulations you perform should be your own decision, whether in-camera, or in post. Going forward with what your own Eye tells you, is what gives your own photography its uniqueness. I personally really love your original shot. Other opinions may differ. That is entirely OK.
Hope I've given you a bit of food for thought.
R2
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You are free to offer critique of any of my images.
Editing and reposting them on this forum is permitted, and even encouraged.
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