Female Mallard

Very nice colors and sharpness in the large detailed view.  Nice to have some sun to bring out the color.  You did well on the BG and it fits in with the image.

Hi May:

I like the nice low angle on the Mallard.  Nice sharpness.  The blurring of the background doesn't look natural.  The areas of the background that are not blocked by the duck have a hard line where your blurring is evident.  In real life, there would be a soft transition from focused to OOF soft background with DOF.  It isn't as obvious "behind" the duck just because I can't see the "line".  In Photoshop there is an option to do a "Field Blur" which is intended to create an effect like DOF bluring.  I don't know what you used, but guessing something like a Gaussian blur with a mask.

 

Hi May
My compliments on a nice, well balanced composition with plenty of really sharp detail.
I’m no expert but the BG looks fine to me however the weird blue halo on the beak really bothers me. To a lesser extent a halo is evident on the forehead, neck and other portions. If I may make a suggestion, you may consider trying the following:  Using CS6, make a selection of the head and neck then inverse the selection. Expand the inverted selection by 1 or possibly 2 px and use a small diameter medium sharp clone stamp to eradicate the affected edges.
David
 

Hi May,
These colors are beautiful and I really like the blurring in the background but agree with Keith that their is something off with the transition. I wonder if simply feathering the background selection before you blur would fix the transition area. You might have to deselect an area around the duck but it might give you the transition you want. At any rate I think this photo is excellent and worth some effort to create your effect. Well done.  

Thanks everyone for your excellent suggestions.  Thanks David Schoen for the suggestion regarding the blue halo.  I easily fixed that.  Keith you are correct I had created a mask and used Gaussian Blur.  I tried using the Field Blur but so far not much success, however, I am going to keep working on it.  I had more success with David Rowe's idea of just blurring the line. 

I very much like the idea of being able to make a gradual blurring of the background so I will keep working on the Field Blur.

Thanks again, May

Hi May, love the low POV and the techs look great. My only nit is the BG blur doesn't look natural. I read others comments so I wasn't duplicating anything. I agree with Keith's idea on the blur. Would like ot see a repost if you get comfortable with the field blur feature. 

I very much like the idea of being able to make a gradual blurring of the background so I will keep working on the Field Blur.

May:  If you'd like me to process the image with field blur, feel free to send me a copy of the jpeg as processed without the gaussian blur.  I'll work it and send it back. 

Excellent detail in the Mallard, May, and I like the looks of the blurred bg.  The transition to the blur does look unnaturally abrupt though.  I'm not sure what technique you used to blur it, but I'll usually just use the blur brush and the lowest hardness setting on it to get a seamless transition.  I'll make the brush circle cover about half the widthof the area I want to blur then do overlapping strokes and it gives pretty good control.