Texas Coot Pair

Jerry,
This is a dreamy image. I wonder how it would look to dodge the eyes and their faces to bring out the red.

Jerry,
Looks like love to me. This has always been a tough bird to expose for unless you have soft filtered light to work with which it looks you've got here. As Patrick has already mentioned you might try selecting the blacks from the neck and head of both birds and selectively lightening both birds blacks ever so slightly. The eyes loo good to me and I don't think I would want much more red than you already have or it would seem a bit un-natural looking to me but the eyes could be lightened just a touch. The water looks pretty good without too many distracting ripples and you've captured some soft, colored light reflected off the water as well. Both birds are sharp with good detail. What makes this image work for me is the interaction you've captured particularly the look the right coot is giving the coot on the left. Coots can be mean and nasty and this interaction looks very kind and endearing to me. Nice capture Jerry!

I'd second David's suggestions. But a nicely captured interaction.

Hi Jerry, I like the crop and overall composition, plus the fact you have retained tone within the bill, easily lost through poor exposure. However, the image overall looks soft, no sharpness based on viewing the larger image, just adding more sharpness I feel will dramatically help, likewise addressing the blue coming through in the plumage, I think you will be pleasantly surprised. You will also see a slight difference I think in the soft blacks of the head, because of the nature I think the definition will be minimal here.

Just my take, but some simple adjustments will elevate the image I think. Using LR5.8 & PSCC2014 is a great platform.

TFS
Steve