FM Great-Tailed Grackle

I think the lighting looks quite good for a very bright morning. I might have given the bird a little more room, particularly on top and on the left.

The plumage and the concrete look over sharpened, and there's a strong nimbus around the darker parts of the grackle and along the legs.

It's quite a good capture.As you say, the light was very bright. There's a very distinct halo along all of the darker edges of the bird, and the lighter feathers appear to over-sharpened. If you are using CS5 (a very nice U/G, by the way), you can use the Magic Wand to select the bird itself, and then use the Select -> Refine Edge command. Set the Smooth slider to 8-10 px, and set feathering to 1.2-1.5px. Then use Smart Sharpen on the selection. Smart Sharpen in CS5 seems a lot more powerful than in CS4 and CS3; use a lot less than you might have earlier.

If you do this, I think you'll find you minimize oversharpening and, especially, the halo.

Good luck.

Nice golden color. I think the overall image is over Sharpened. You may want to mask some of the bird and just sharpen the head and neck area.

An excellent pose showing the eye very well. I agree that it appears to be oversharpened.

Jay, I like the pose of the Grackle and think the comp might be better as a vertical presentation because of the height of the bird. I agree the image appears oversharpened and has a pronounced halo, you should be able to correct those issue in a reworked version.