Photos of Pied-Billed Grebes Rejected

[mrpicky]

Hi Adobe friends,

These two photos I submitted were rejected, and I'm trying to understand why. I masked the lake and adjusted the temperature and saturation to make it more blue, but that's it. Any thoughts? I appreciate your feedback!

Thank you,

David

[RALPH_L]

You need to sharpen a little bit. The problem though, is the area of burned out highlights on the ducks feathers. Copy some texture over theese areas and you should have better results.

[mrpicky]

Good point, Ralph. I appreciate your insight. Do you think making the water blue was also part of the problem? This is how the photos looked before color correction

[Abambo]

You did modify the colour a lot. It looks a bit like candy now, you should not be that extreme. 😉 The big issues are sharpness, exposure and the highlights.

[Abambo]

In addition to what @RALPH_L said, your exposure is not correct: