Ruffed Grouse

Beautiful detail and excellent composition. For a comment, perhaps dodging the eye area would bring out the eye detail and make the photo not just good, but perfect... Being more visual than verbal, I've attached an example of my thoughts. I hope you don't mind, and if you don't like it, I'll be glad to remove it... Mike

Mike, A couple of people suggested regarding a similar grouse photograph that more attention could be given to lightening the head/eye area to bring out the detail. I agree with the suggestion and I like what you have done. Please don't remove it as it is an interesting point for discussion. I guess I have reservations though as my intent is to portray accurately the whole bird without selectively altering the colouration - perhaps an alternative is to lighten the whole picture. In the attachment I lowered the contrast so as to raise the exposure by 0.8 stop without blowing the highlights and, I my view the head looks better. However, the colour saturation is lower. Any comments? Regards, Tony

Tony... I think your adjustments look great. They bring out more eye detail and the snow is not blown out, so all is well. We don't have these birds so I don't know their natural color, but perhaps the original post simply suffered from posting compression because the highlights do look uniformly suppressed. An excellent capture regardless... Mike