Contributor critique of images declined for "technical reasons"

[stephens42858592]

I am attaching a copy of an image declined for “technical reasons”.  I’d love to get some feedback on the underlying issue(s).

Thanks

[Jill_C · Accepted solution]

The front edge of the wing is not in sharp focus, and when I zoom in and inspect the edges of the bird I see a few white patches and haloes here and there. Did you cut and paste the bird onto the blue background?

[stephens42858592]

When I took the photo the swallow was barely in the frame.  In PS, I selected the bird, copied it to the paste buffer, did a select and context fill to have nothing but sky, then pasted the saved bird back in and moved it to the middle of the frame.  I'll attach the JPG original from the camera.  FWIW the image I sent to Adobe Stock was done from the CR3 raw file.

Perhaps I would have been better served to expand the canvas, context fill in the sky and then crop it?

As to the front edge of the wing, I shot this at ISO 1000, 1/3200 sec and f/10 aperture.  Perhaps I should have done f/14?  I ususally do f/14 in case I want to capture multiple birds but in this case the setting had (somehow) been shifted down to f/10.  Thoughts?

[jacquelingphoto2017]

Hi @stephens42858592 ,

It is recommended that you do the necessary basic corrections and upload your photo as is. How about a bird crossing the sky on a fair weather day with no cloud in the sky. Or someone need just the blue and edit out the bird. Or, another need just the bird and nothing else. It is not recommending that you do the kind of cropping you did. The customer will do same if necessary. Keep in mind that we are providing raw material for projects and not the projects.

I suggest you upload this image after doing the basic corrections.

Best wishes

Jacquelin

[stephens42858592]

Thanks

[Jill_C · Accepted solution]

Yes, I think you might have had better results by extending the sky to the left rather than manipulating the bird. I'm not very proficient a bird photography, so can't really advise the best camera settings for capturing them in flight. When I manage to do successfully, it's usually because I use the burst mode and get lucky ! It's actually quite a beautiful image. I think if you fix the white spots, do a bit of selective sharpening and lighten the area around the eye it will get accepted. 

[stephens42858592]

Ok I'll give that a try.

I've been trying for years to capture swallows in flight and I'm just starting to make some headway.

Thanks for the advice

[Abambo]

You can correct and resubmit! Give it a try.

[reedesign1912]

I think @Jill_C is right regarding the edges of the bird.  Here is one noticeable white patch that you should be able to clean up and erase.

I would also lighten the shadows a bit so that you get more definition around the bird's eye.

The only other thing I noticed is that on the blue background in front of the bird, there seems to be darker patches that could easily be cloned out.

I hope this helped.

[stephens42858592]

Yes, in retrospect I see I should have lifted the shadows a bit to make the eye more visible.  

Thanks for your response

[ricky336 · Accepted solution]

Hello,

I would also extend the sky to as @Jill_C  mentioned. I think there may be a bit too much contrast, as well, so I would reduce that a bit.

[Jilali5DC6]

This is your problem I guess. I am not satisfied with sky, it´s to dark.