kentw

Hi Gary --

Nicely done. I like it.

kent wilson

Hi Monte --

This must have been a difficult photo to make - a night flight image. Frankly, I do not know how to set up a shot like this one. Hand held 500 mm lens with flash and Beamer! Wow!

Setting that aside, in my opinion, it is not up to the very high quality other work of yours I have seen here, mainly because of the distracting background. The owl appears to be impaled by the left support beam. Not much detail to see in the wings and body.

On the other hand, the face, and especially the eyes, are terrific (typical of your bird photos).

Regards,

kent wilson

Hi Gary --

I like your photo and the story it tells: it isn't easy getting out of the water and into the air with wet feathers!

The background is much better than the image of the heron. The white spots in the water are a bit distracting. Maybe blur the BG out more?

You caught the wings in a good position, so the face is revealed, and the face is very expressive (to anthropomorphize a bit).

I think you could give the bird a bit more room to fly by giving more room on the right of the image. Perhaps also crop a bit off the top and see if you think it improves your image?

Did you shoot this at a high ISO? It appears to me that there is some noise in the dark areas? If I'm correct, then an application of noise reduction would help that.

Finally, I think applying some sharpening to the head, especially to the eye, would make it pop more.

I hope my suggestions are helpful.

regards,

kent wilson

Hi Birger --

I almost passed over this image. Hard to see a bird in the thumbnail, rather dark colors, etc. I am very pleased that I looked again and decided to look at the larger image!

The color is wonderful and the bird and its reflection, while small, are not too small. The red marker, while it does draw the eyes, it also draws them backto the center of the image to look at it again.

Thanks very much for sharing.

Regards,

kent wilson

I agree with Bill's observation.

I think that photo could be improved by giving more room on the right. This should be very easy to do; just crop the image and move the crop boundary beyond the right border to give some extra empty space. Then fill those empty pixels with a copy from the background being careful to match up the textures. Hope this is clear and helpful.

kent wilson

A critique would be most appreciated.

tyhanks for looking.

Critiques and suggestions please.

Thanks for looking.

Very nice photo, Kent. Exposure looks spot on, the subject is sharp and nicely placed in the frame. I can't see a problem with noise on my monitor.

Congratulations on a beautiful photo.

kent wilson

Critiques and suggestions are very appreciated.

And thanks for looking.

Critiques and suggestions are very appreciated.

Thanks for looking.

Photo taken in California, and I'm not as familiar with western birds. I would guess Great-Tailed Grackle. About the size of a crow?

Thanks for the offer of a printable image. He'll be thrilled. I'll email you my email addy.

These are really remarkable images.

regards,

kent

I think it's better than the other image.

The head is a bit over exposed, as Sinh points out You should consider burning it down a bit. If you shoot in RAW format, the overexposed head can be saved pretty easily, Tell me if you don't know how to do that. What post processing tool do you use?

Besides doing that, try to blur the background. I would blur it to the extent that the individual sticks are not recognizable; so all you will have in teh background is a brown blur. I tried it and I thought it improved the image. In Photoshop, you can use the Quick Selection Tool to select the bird, refine the selection, and then Invert the selection. That will give you everything but the heron. The OPEN A NEW LAYER -- that's very important,so you don't have to start all over if you make a mistake -- and use the Gaussian Blur filter, selecting a value you like by just moving the slider - about 10 more or less should be good. The open a layer mask on the layer and paint areas that may need fixed a bit. For example, the greenbrush in the foreground will also be blurred out, If you paint black on the mask you will reveal the greenery. You might want to keep it a little blurred. In that case, adjust the opacity of your brush. If you dont like what you are getting at any point, paint with white.

I hope that this helps.

glad to help, if I can.

kent

Hi Brad --

It's kent again. I showed this to my son, who's an E.A. Poe fan. He also likes it (higher praise than he gives my images). He said, "That's a photo I'd actually put on my wall." He's NEVER said that about any of my pictures.

Thought you'd like to know.

Hi Brad --

I really like this photo a lot. Very moody scene, the raven in silhouette (that's as it appears on my monitors), with that incredible eye, Nice placement of the subject in the frame.

Maybe lighten the eye a bit; but that may not be an improvement. I think this image is very good.

regards,

kent wilson

Thanks, all.

The lighting was natural light, shot outdoors. I got lucky with that.

Critiques and suggestions are always appreciated.

Thanks for looking.

kent

Hi Gary --

The heron is sharp and the pose is good. But ...

The biggest problem I see in your photo is the clutter which distract from your otherwise beautiful bird. You might try blurring the background and perhaps darkening it slightly. I don't know what to suggest about the foreground busyness. Perhaps one of the more accomplished contributors can help you out on that.

I hope my suggestions are helpful.

regards,

kent wilson

Hi Bettina--

The colors of the dalia are pleasing and contrast well with the darker background

In my humble opinion, your image can be improved. On my monitor, the flower looks a bit soft. If it is soft, perhaps you like it that way; on the other hand, you might try sharpening it and see if you prefer the sharpened version.

The background presents problems for me. The out of focus light or white areas, especially those on the right hand side, are distracting. Unless you have reasons not to do so, I suggest cloning them out or burning them down or perhaps just darkening the right side of the image to the point where they do not stand out so much (or at all).

On the left side, the leaf and flower at the bottom are not contributing to the image, I think, and the white spot in the left middle also is distracting. The bud at the top right does add to the image, and it is dark enough so that it does not draw the eyes away from the flower.

Of course, these are just my opinions, and you may regard them as mistaken. I hope some of these suggestions will be helpful.

regards,

kent wilson

Very nicely done, Jose. The damselfly is very sharp, the background is beautiful and complements the color of the insect very nicely, and you have a strong, dynamic composition. I like this image very much.

kent wilson

Please identify this flower for me.

Critiques and suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks for looking,

kent

Thanks, Richard. I appreciate your comments.

kent

One strength of a photo is whether it has the power to make the viewer think, and this photo does that for me. Upon further reflection, the smallness of the spider in the big world is an important part of your story.

I think that one failure of many of the critiques on this site is viewers expect pretty or dramatic. This photo, as I am beginning to see it better, is subtle and makes a different statement..

So now I think that the fact that the spider is tiny is a strength of the image.

Thanks for the stimulation!

Regards,

kent

Thanks, Dean. I don't believe that I ever submitted the photo to the critique forum, and there are so many very good images in the galleries, I didn't really expect anyone would find this one and trouble bother to critique it.

I appreciate your taking the time to make a comment.

Regards,

kent

Critiques and suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks for looking.

kent

Cedar Waxwing.

Nice work. Hard to get decent flight shots of birds this size.

regards,

kent