This was taken around Christmas of 2009. The pelican sat pretty for me while I took a ton of photos of him.
Leveled the image and cropped.
Nik Efex Tonal Contrast
Masked pelican and used Redfield Perfectum on the background.
Nik Efex Color Contrast to make the colors pop a bit
Levels layer to brighten the whole thing.
Selectively brightened the eye and emphasized the catch light.
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The face of the bird is fabulous, the painting-like nature of the background works really well but I'm not so sure about the treatment of the wing feathers.
I really think the PP here pops this shot and makes it much stronger. Nicely caught. Ooooh the more I look the more I actually see, this guys been tagged (I believe that is a tag on his leg). Nice capture.
A little on the overprocessed side, but I like it. It does very good for the details on the pelican, though it also brought out some unpleasant graininess in the background.
Fabulous capture, perfect focus and depth of field. Looks like a longer exposure on the water, providing an ethereal look, while the pelican is in near perfect focus. A bit of odd blurring at the top back side of the head. 9
Wonderful great detail on this pelican sitting on the dock. The bokeh effect with the ocean and the buildings in the backdrop makes it look like a painting or mural - makes the bird pop more because appears more real whereas it's environment does not. Colors, lighting and detail are very good - can see the fine details in the feathers of the folded wing and the soft golden down on it's top head.
The processing really emphasizes the bird from the surroundings. There appears though to be haloing around the bird and the heavy processing of the background is not to my liking
The intensity of the textures is great. It almost has a 3-d/cartoon look to it if that makes sense. I just love the expressions of pelicans. Wise beyond years. Wonderful use of horizontal and diagonal line (the shore and buildings). Nicely seen and executed. 8
At first glance I thought you had gone crazy with the topaz, but now I'm thinking that the background scene may actually be a drawing.
You have good details in the bird, but when I look closely there's something strange going on where the bird meets the background, it may be as a result of some editing you have done but it almost looks like you have superimposed the picture of the bird onto the picture of the background!
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