Half a dozen Juncos today

[Shortsighted]

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[Shortsighted]

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[Ally]

wow, how do you do it? every hair is visible on your juncos.

[Ally]

Among the juncos, and he doves, I had a lone white throated sparrow who is kind of shy

[Shortsighted]

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[Ally]

Thank you so much for your detailed description. It's such a cold day, maybe I will dig out my manual and see whether I can understand it. I don't know much about photo shop either. Do you mean you learned everything by reading manuals? That's a wonder

Detail. in the absence of Topaz Gigapixel-AI, is all a matter or magnification and proximity.
Well, I don't have magnification on my side, not at 200mm, so I need to court proximity.

I place a make-shift feeder (consisting of a section of a log) installed horizontally and supported
on a pole. The top of the log is deeply trenched with a V-shaped groove so that it can hold a
line of mixed seed. There are two branches screwed onto the side of the log, one on each side
and pointing in opposite directions. A third (thinner) twig is mounted separately a couple of
feet away. I can therefore shoot whatever alights onto the log to feed, or whatever visits
one of the associated perches.

I shoot through an open sliding window. The space is filled with either a sheet of cardboard,
or a piece of SM-brand styrofoam fitted with a hole for the lens. Shooting through a
glass pane will degrade the image. I don't have image stabilization so I use an old
Linhof tripod from the 1970's. It's heavy by today's standards but beautifully made in Germany.
Unfortunately, my camera's shutter is quite loud and sometimes the birds can hear it trip and
they jump a little. Even my old film SLR was not as loud as this Canon T4i. Heck, even I jump on
occasion. Mostly however I jump onto false deduction and then cling to them with equally tenacious
devotion so take anything I say with a bag of salt.

Personally, I would try to tone down the contrast on your backyard bird photos and then I think you
will capture more fine detail. Your shadows are too dark and highlights are sometimes burned out.
You should be able to make adjustments within the menu of your camera. Failing that you could
use any photo editing software: Photoshop, Lightroom, whatever.

[Shortsighted]

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[Dinusaur]

No, I don't have Cannon gear (except for the Binocular), I am a Nikon guy. However, post processing will not change whether you use Cannon or Nikon. I have Photoshop Elements and I use it only to remove shadows and/or join two or three photos. Otherwise I use Nikon's ViewNX software to crop and sharpen, and occasionally adjust D-lighting when Sun is behind the object as was most likely the case with Ally's photos of the juncos. I took her 3.jpg picture and just adjusted the shadow on Photoshop Element to produce this. I spend very little time in post processing. I would certainly like to learn a bit of background manipulation - but as Shortsighted said, it is boring.
[attachment=0:16qyduvo]3a.jpg[/attachment:16qyduvo]

[Ally]

I don't get to complain it's boring, because I don't know how to photoshop. Hahaha, I guess it's the fun spending time with the birds, the fun of getting the shots and missing them.  

 

No, I don't have Cannon gear (except for the Binocular), I am a Nikon guy. However, post processing will not change whether you use Cannon or Nikon. I have Photoshop Elements and I use it only to remove shadows and/or join two or three photos. Otherwise I use Nikon's ViewNX software to crop and sharpen, and occasionally adjust D-lighting when Sun is behind the object as was most likely the case with Ally's photos of the juncos. I took her 3.jpg picture and just adjusted the shadow on Photoshop Element to produce this. I spend very little time in post processing. I would certainly like to learn a bit of background manipulation - but as Shortsighted said, it is boring.
[attachment=0:3p5kksol]3a.jpg[/attachment:3p5kksol]

[Shortsighted]

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[Ally]

Wish someday, someone might show me how to do this step by step  

A processed Mourning Dove

[Shortsighted]

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[Ally]

Thanks for providing the study material for the month  

Ally, there a number of “DIY” videos on youtube that cover some of the most useful features of Photoshop, or those of any of the other popular photo editing software (PES) currently being used by amateurs.
At this conjure I don’t even know what kind of PES you have, if any. Dinu mentioned PS Elements, which is a truncated version of PS equipped with the essential tools; the tools deployed on almost every image and those that can sculpt a RAW file into something that ultimately displays as a well-groomed jpg. I don’t shoot in RAW because no image I am likely to create is ever special enough to warrant such a deep-diving degree of processing that RAW enables. Besides, I do not have the software to manage a RAW file coming from a Canon camera (proprietary). RAW files are much larger than a jpg, therefore they use up more HD space and seriously reduce the speed of shooting in bursts. The buffer of a modest T4i is quickly saturated when shooting in RAW, or in RAW + jpg simultaneously, all of which is an option with a Ti series camera body.
Your Mourning Dove shot was processed as follows:
I cropped your image in a vertical aspect ratio because the subject was taller than it was wide and there was nothing beyond the bounds of your subject that demanded inclusion. I captured more of the back-ground space on the side of the picture that the dove is looking into and provided less space on the other side. That balance of space is more satisfying and keeps the subject just to one side of the picture’s center-line.
The dove’s breast showed layered feature detail but it was a bit washed-out so I darkened the caramel colour by selecting that colour from the palette of the PS paintbrush tool and then set the size of the tool’s influence (a circular zone of application chosen from a sliding scale at the top of the screen). The next step was to select a function for the tool fixed to that colour. The function needed is called “colour burn”. Then the intensity of colour burn is chosen from another sliding scale, keeping the intensity very low, say 5%. If the tool is then passed back and forth over the dove’s breast the dark parts become slightly darker and more saturated (lighter areas and area of a different color) remain unaffected.
The tips of the breast feathers are lighter and can be accented further by selecting PS dodge tool, choosing a tool size, selecting from three offered settings: HIGHLIGHTS / MIDTONES / SHADOWS. Choose highlights and then set % intensity (very low – 3%) and then brushing the tool over the feather tips to lighten them. This could also be done more simply if there was a dedicated contrast tool, but I don’t know of one and I was not prepared to alter the contrast of the whole image at that point.

Dodge Tool: This had nothing to do with Chrysler because this dodge actually works. Dodging is a darkroom technique that is done during the exposure of a piece of photographic paper while the negative’s image is being projected onto the paper from the photograph enlarger. During the exposure of the paper (say 20 seconds) an opaque disk attached to a thin stiff wire is passed in a circular motion over a portion of the projected image that is too dark and must be lightened to produce a more pleasing print. The disk stops the light from hitting the paper’s emulsion, a process called dodging. PS also has a dodge tool and the darkroom is relegated to history. Man, when I think of the time I spent in my darkroom when I was young and ignorant.
The PS dodge tool set to “shadow” dialed down in size but boosted in intensity (25%). I then used it to lighten shadow area on the face of the dove, including the eye area. I love the transmission of back lighting behind the bird’s head and wanted to preserve that feature of your picture. A sharpen tool was then selected, adjusted for size and used to sharpen the eye and beak area.
The contrast of your whole image was then adjusted with the LEVELS control. It is divided into three areas of influence: Highlights, mid-tones and shadows. Each has a slider. The corners of your image were subtly darkened into a vignette using the brush tool set to a dark neutral colour, opened up to a wide aperture and set to “normal” (not colour burn) and set to low intensity (a few %). As the tool is flicked across the corners of the image it darkens it to create a hint of vignette. Some PES has a dedicated feature to accomplish this and I might as well without knowing it. I can do it manually fast enough. I quick to apply these simple PS steps from shear repetition and because I have been called bionic. At least it was something that ended in ic. Perhaps it was idiotic. Yes, I’m sure of it now. It wasn’t bionic.

[Shortsighted]

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[Ally]

Ally, I've checked the menu of my T4i looking for potential contrast adjustments
and could not locate any form of adjustment even though I was sure that there
was a sliding scale. What I barely recall may have been in the menu of my old
Canon G9. Unfortunately the back screen on that compact camera is cracked
and does not display anything anymore. I can still shoot if the dial is set to AUTO
but I can't see the results so it's like using a film camera. I don't really know
what I have until I offload the image. The G9 has an external ISO dial so I can
set that without a screen.

You will need to use the "image" button in PS (top bar - third from the left
after "edit". From the list of options under that button choose either
"Brightness/contrast" (top of list) or the second option "LEVELS" and apply
as previously described.

Okay, I will try this weekend. Haven't decided whether to go look for what white hawk or go chase my old dream, Canada Jay in Algonquin.