My last thread of the year... I made it a good one =)

I took my son for a walk today since it was such a beautiful day. We went to a park on the lakeshore here in Toronto called Tommy Thompson Park which is a man made land reclamation project. The area has been designated a wildlife sanctuary due to the largest breeding populations of Cormorants, Mergansers and a certain type of gull (I can't remember which) in all of Canada. (at least that what the signs down there claim lol.

So the very first thing we spotted was an American Kestrel with a fresh kill. We missed the catch but as you see we caught it mid feeding. (image #1)

We then moved further outward into the park and spotted a Juvenile Bald Eagle sitting WAY out on the ice where no one could bug it (except those of us birders with 400MM or longer lenses lol) (image #2)

There are TONS of various species of ducks out there as well with the land making a large point with water on both sides. The sun was in and out on me all day but I did my best to compensate. Here is a proud mallard who posed for a few seconds before I moved and scared him off (Image #3)

The next few ducks I am not sure on the ID but I was told by a fellow birder that they are Long Tailed ducks. Image #4 - Female, image #5 Male (I think)

The rest of these shots are of the very beautiful Kestrel as it sat and posed in various trees as we made our way out of the park.

***EDIT***

Can anyone suggest a method for fixing the sky? I find that it is WAY too Cyan looking but I can't seem to figure out how to fix it. I mean sure it was -$ C but the sky doesn't need to look that cold lol.

Use a layer mask and then just do a graduated blue sky. I don't want to hijack your thread, but if you'd like an example, start a new thread with a "how can I fix this sky" subject. If you look at the image of the Black Hooded Parakeet I did several days back, that image had a far worse sky than yours. I'll gladly post a "before" and "after" for you if you like.

ETA: Actually, this thread contains both the before and after image of the parakeet in flight. Just scroll through the whole thread, and you'll see the two of them:

http://forums.photographyreview.com/...ad.php?t=39200

Love that first shot in the initial post. Wow! I'm envious :thumbsup:

I don't use layers nor masks. Just adjust color balance - skies can be naturalized by the highlights and/or midtones. Then adjust the shadows to correct the color cast introduced by step #1.

I'm with Loupey, that first shot is dynamite. Love those Kestrels, the colours are so beautiful. I'm envying you, I've yet to get a shot of one with my digital although I got some b&w shots years ago with my K1000 35 mil.

Jaedon, regarding the color correction - try this on the first image:

Highlights: +15 red
Shadows: -5 cyan

Those alone will make it look a lot different.

Alrighty. I'll try that tonight when I get some actual time to myself to get back to editing when the kids are asleep. Thanks for the suggestion Loupey. I will post my results.

***EDIT*** Wow I got my second FP. I've been posting for 2 years and I got my first FP only a few weeks ago. Obviously I am improving =) .... must be all the "dreaming I was more like Loupey" that I've been doing lol.

Congratulations on the FP Jaedon :)

Cassie.

I did the corrections as you suggested Loupey and added +5 to the blues in the midtones to bring back a little bit of the colour that was lost in the bird itself with the other corrections. Much better now. The Cyan background is now almost back to the original white/gray clouds that were actually there.

Great shots Jaedon, I like the first one, it really has nice markings on his face.

Still looks like it has too much cyan on my monitor (I know the skies up there can't be too different from what we get here :p ). Could I post my version of it?

As for the POTW, I'm well aware of how rare it is to get such an image. I'm still trying to get one myself. Worthy of the recognition in my book :thumbsup:

Congrats on the FP Jaedon :)

Loupey - You can absolutely post your version. It's easier to see what someone is trying to tell you when you have the visual lol.

It does still look Cyan but it is a lot better. I am still playing with it till I get it right. You don't get an opportunity like that very often so putting the best foot forward is where I would like to end up.

Knight - Thanks bro

***EDIT***

I went back to the original and made different corrections than last time and a slightly different crop to see what the end result would be. This is much better

OK. So I made these color corrections based on what you said earlier - assuming a white/featureless overcast sky.

1st image: color corrections only
2nd image: "full" PP edit

In trying to bring detail back into the face of the kestrel, the sky tends to blow out in the lower right corner. I never was able to get the mouse to lose that "dodged" appearance.

As for #1, the actual color corrections were:
Highlights: 37 red, 5 green, 3 yellow
Midtones: 15 cyan, 3 green, 5 yellow
Shadows: 7 cyan, 12 green, 10 blue

Getting to #2 required Levels, Curves, and more Color adjustments.

Let me know if these look anywhere near what you remember.

the first one is a lot closer to what I was looking at that day. I am going back to the drawing board and use the corrections you have listed to see if I can get the full resolution image to look as nice. Thanks for the help Loupey. I'll get back to you when it is done.....again lol.

Great shots, and in particular that kestrel! I find sometimes to fix a sky I reduce the luminance of the blue channel if there isn't a lot of other blue elsewhere in the image. Too much looks weird, but a little bump down can help the sky look more blue.

Looks good. The last ducks are oldsquaw. that last one is a nice looking bird.