Black-shouldered Kite

I like the pose, perch and eye contact of this beautiful Kite. I feel some selective levels or brightness work on the sky and black shoulders (and maybe some NR on the over-saturated sky) would really bring this picture up a notch.

nice pose here Nico...I think the image could benefit from some noise reduction on the background and some opening up of the shadow areas as they are quite dark. I would also crop tighter from the top and RHS.

I really like the pose with the color of the iris showing along with the catch light. Excellent exposure on the whites but with an attendant lack of detail in the dark wings. It may be possible to bring out some detail. I also suggest a little noise reduction selectively applied to the blue sky. Nits aside, I'm envious of this shot of the Black-shouldered Kite.

Thanks for the comments everyone! I did notice the noise in the blue sky, but I would appreciate advice on how to tackle the problem. I currrently use Photoshop Elements 8 for my post production, but although I find it OK for other aspects, it seems to be ineffective with noise reduction. That was also the reason why I kept the dark areas as they were, since when I tried to open them up a bit, they appeared quite noisy. Any advise on a better way to tackle the colour noise in the background please?

Nico

Gorgeous bird, great eye contact. I would suggest a little noise reduction if you haveit. I use Imagenomic Noisepro and love it.

Thanks for the comment and advice Cheryl, I will give it a try!

Here's a repost of the shot, with the suggested work on the background noise and a slight lightening of the shadow areas. I've used the software suggested by Cheryl for the noise reduction, and I could see that its quite effective. Thnaks for the advice.

Nico

Nico:
The noise reduction worked well in the BG. But now you have a halo around the bird's right wing and it is also noticeable around the perch. The additional detail in the darks helps IMO. I've never used Elements, so don't know how to advise you on that. About the halo - if I were making brightness or exposure adjustment on just the bird, I would do my best job of selecting the bird and then refine the edge so that the selected area is a little smaller than the actual bird. In photoshop you can feather this so that the adjustment does not produce a halo. It takes practice, but this image is worth the work.

I believe these are called white-tailed kite now. Not sure why the change.
Really nice catch! Good pose and good head-turn. Pretty good detail, but you have lost some in the whites and a lot in the blacks. the re-post is much better - good work! easy to work on the halo.
I'd use some levels adjustment on that great eye too, to make it pop - .
Nice!
Sandy