Wren – New Bird Pix https://newbirdpix.com My Journey - Learning How to Photograph Birds Mon, 05 Jul 2021 13:19:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://newbirdpix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IMG_4437-2-2-150x150.jpg Wren – New Bird Pix https://newbirdpix.com 32 32 Carolina Wren at the Beach https://newbirdpix.com/carolina-wren-at-the-beach/ Tue, 17 Nov 2020 00:32:46 +0000 https://newbirdpix.com/?p=406 This photo was taken last month on my trip to Nags Head. I love the stance and attitude, but the photo needs some lightroom editing help. I hope to post an improved version of this picture in the next week or so. I think I can warm up the stark background and provide better contracts with the white feathers on his face. But first, I need to learn about masking and layers that allow changes to selected areas. I don’t want to change how the bird looks, but I do want to make the background less white. More to follow!

Carolina Wren Carolina Wren with photo editing ISO 1600 400 mm f/5.6 1/1000 sec

I think this is slightly better. I used three masks, one to put some color in the sky, another to bring up the highlights and whites on the wren. The third was to darken and sharpen the beak and neck. Definitely not pro-quality, but interesting. While I up my skills as a photographer, I need to also learn how to effectively post-process.

]]> Carolina Wren https://newbirdpix.com/carolina-wren/ Sat, 15 Aug 2020 16:29:33 +0000 https://newbirdpix.com/?p=241 A tiny bird with beautiful brown and cream-colored feathers. Just a lovely bird! This is my first effort using Lightroom’s photo editing features. All of my previous posts were unedited JPEGs from my Canon Rebel Ti6. Sharpness and clarity were good in this photo, but I was able to bring up a bit more detail from the shadows. I also used vignette to minimize the edges. That minimized the appearance of the feeder post. It’s always nicer to have a bird on a natural perch but this was what I had. I didn’t do much with the editing, but what I did do produced a better photo. The original Canon JPEG is below.

Carolina Wren
Carolina Wren without Lightroom edits ISO 400 420 mm f/5.6 1/640 sec

It’s surprising to me how much better the photo is with only five adjustments in Lightroom. I added the vignette and played with the highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks. That was all I did and it made a big difference in the quality of the final product. I realize that learning post-processing is a critical step in my growth as a wildlife photographer. It’s not my favorite thing to do, but necessary.

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