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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Roy C" data-source="post: 1648607" data-attributes="member: 18798">Thanks for the responses so far folks. Here is my take on the shot:Overall the exposure was just about right but the strong sidelight meant that the back was brighter than the front of the bird.  I hate the harsh light on the back and for me this kills it stone dead from the start. Also the breast had to be lifted a bit in processing which as caused too much noise in that area for my liking.It should be evident that this is a fairly heavy crop and as such the bird is not as detailed as it should be.The background was grass of varying tones including over exposed highlights - was way overpowering. I applied a very heavy Gaussian blur and desaturated by toning  down the yellow but it still looks overpowering to me. It is just not right and as someone has already pointed out, it looks un natural.Also the line between the heavy blurring and the bird is evident around the edges of the bird and post if you look carefully.The banding/halos mentioned by Paul and Marcus around the head and back is a good example of very careless processing (too heavy brush and too high opacity when cloning in tight). The post was creosoted  green and is too much in tone with the BG, I would have preferred a brown colour as a contrast. There is just too much green in there for my liking (even though I have desaturated the BG) The crop is also a little too tight for me, might have got away with it if there was more detail in the bird. I always think that a fairly tight crop of a bird only works if you have very good feather detail, if not a looser crop with more habitat works better.I was shooting from a track some 10 feet or so above the bird. A lower shooting angle would have been a lot better. It would also have given a more pleasing bokeh without having to resort to the heavy Gaussian blur (instead of shooting right down on to grass, a lower shooting angle would have picked up a distant wooded area).Just about the only thing I do like about the shot is the actual pose of the bird but it is not enough to save the image from dusty bin.Attached is the full frame unprocessed shot for reference. In some respects It works better than the crop IMO.</blockquote>

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