Some birds from Green Lake

[Grumpy John]

We camped at Green Lake for 3 nights whilst doing the Silo Art Trail. There must be plenty of water around for the birds to choose from as there weren't many at this lake.

#1. Need ID on this one please.


#2. ID needed on this one as well please.


#3 Spur Wing Plover.

[HansE]

It is a shame I didn't know about the bird ID a day ago.


It was very likely on display here.

[HansE]

Nothing as fancy as that John. It is a record shot taken with the Samsung phone

[Grumpy John]

The phones are getting pretty damn good at taking photos these days. I'm happy that it's not a selfie.

[HansE]

Haha. Have not done one. Have lots of pictures of other people doing so though!

[wigz]

Hi John, I think #1 is a Rainbow Bee-eater. #2 looks like a Willie Wagtail although the feathers look glossy and the white eyebrow a bit long

[Grumpy John]

Thanks Alan, I'll check my bird ID App using your suggestions and see what comes up.

[Grumpy John]

I did a bit of checking, looks like you're right on both counts. I'll revisit the images and do a bit more work on them to give rthem a bit of a lift.

[Grumpy John]

An edit on the Rainbow Bee-eater.

CC welcome.

[wigz]

Beautiful light John. they are beautiful birds. All the branches distract a bit because the bird is a bit small in the frame, but you do have a clear view of the bird. Are you able to crop in a little closer? I'm always struggling with getting close enough to small birds.

[Grumpy John]

Here ya go Alan, cropped and branches removed (somewhat crudely)

[wigz]

I wouldn't have gone for such a drastic crop and I wouldn't have been game to attempt to remove those branches. I liked your original framing; it's just that the bird was a bit small in the frame. Apart from a bit of fuzziness where you have removed branches it's a lot cleaner. There is also a bit of haloing where you have lightened the bird.

I don't know how many pixels you have to work with but here is what I was thinking of.

• Cropped down by about a third. I should have placed the bird a tad lower in the frame perhaps.
• resized back to 1024 wide
• added a tiny bit of contrast and saturation on the bird, excluding the background, using Tonal Contrast in Nik Color Efex pro
• added very subtle brightening to the bird

I don't think my skills are up to removing the branches so I would tend to leave them but removing some would help. Just cropping has made the bird stand out a bit more

If you have enough pixels, you could crop in a bit closer.

[Grumpy John]

Alan, if you still have the NIK settings for the Tonal Contrast would you mind sharing them as I am having another go at this edit?

[wigz]

I used ‘fine’ with default settings and used a ‘+’ control point on the bird. It’s a fairly subtle effect.

[Grumpy John]

Thanks Alan. This edit is doing my head in, I'm going to take a break from it for a while.

[Grumpy John]

Your edit is much better than mine Alan. I think the haloing is a result of the branch removal process, luckily I was using a lot of layers and I still have the PSD file so I can easily go back and do some fixes.
The original file size is 5472 x 3648 and the size of he image you worked on is 3576 x 2384 (before being resized for uploading). I'll continue to play with this image as my PS skills need a lot of practice.
I'll probably end up with an image with a couple of hundred layers when I'm finished