I'm with Steve on this the less you use post production software the better, and I owned software you can't buy off the shelf. It's tedious.
The Nikon colour balance on the latest cameras is excellent, and requires the smallest amount of any manipulation. I'm going again to trumpet the D800, I don't touch the images apart from a slight sharpen.
With ISO Colin, don't panic, all digital images produce noise, it's in the genes. I'm not a fan of increasing ISO, there's a misconception that raising the levels suddenly turns on a light, it doesn't the light reflecting off your subject is still the same. As a photographer you have to decide whether to continue taking images in poor light, not the camera.
Noise should not be a problem with a Nikon, if you are seeing it, then you are doing something wrong, either at source or post production.
The larger Heron pic is fine, all it needed is the highlight raising a %, your aim for producing a high quality reproduction is to produce a 'soft image' which show the full extend of the colour range, stay clear of over use of the contrast controls.
You have two top quality pieces of Nikon kit which will give you images to be very proud of.
Best of luck, get out there and enjoy.
The Nikon colour balance on the latest cameras is excellent, and requires the smallest amount of any manipulation. I'm going again to trumpet the D800, I don't touch the images apart from a slight sharpen.
With ISO Colin, don't panic, all digital images produce noise, it's in the genes. I'm not a fan of increasing ISO, there's a misconception that raising the levels suddenly turns on a light, it doesn't the light reflecting off your subject is still the same. As a photographer you have to decide whether to continue taking images in poor light, not the camera.
Noise should not be a problem with a Nikon, if you are seeing it, then you are doing something wrong, either at source or post production.
The larger Heron pic is fine, all it needed is the highlight raising a %, your aim for producing a high quality reproduction is to produce a 'soft image' which show the full extend of the colour range, stay clear of over use of the contrast controls.
You have two top quality pieces of Nikon kit which will give you images to be very proud of.
Best of luck, get out there and enjoy.