This is my second entry with one of this beautiful bird's shots, and one of the best of my shots last year. It kind of reminds me of Jonathan Livingston (although this is a gannet not a gull, but who cares). Anyways, one of those "perfect" places and moments...
A little bit of levels/curves adjustment. Desaturate the blue and cyan channels to make the sea b&w. The color version may look better for some people, but I just remember this "perfect" place as it looks on the b&w version. Sharpen the gannet a little bit and smooth the background by reduce noise. Cropped and that's it.
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Wow, I was not aware that so many people on dpc have a serious allergy to selective saturation. Well, it is good to know :-)))
Nice catch about the halo-ing around the wings issue. I must admit, I was lazy about the selection. The color on the background was cyan-blue dominated, I did not bother doing any selection. Well the halo is because of that ;-)
As for the blown highlights, I agree. Again because of laziness... I edited this version for printing and did not bother to edit it again for screen.
Well, thanks for the comments, I appreciate them...
Excellent job on the focus here. Not sure if the water desturation works best on this. Perhaps a slightly toned down blue/green would have added to it.
Nice focus, exposure and composition. However, I can see some halo-ing around the edges of the wings where you must have done the selections for the selective desat on the background. Was the desaturation really necessary? I think it might have been just as good an image without the extra processing.
Stiking shot and interesting choice with the desat. I get what you wanted to do but I'm not sure about the B&W. Other than that, this shot is really good! Good luck.
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