Two heads are better than one?

[hlcowan]

My latest hope has been to shoot (with my camera, of course!) hawks. Unfortunately, they REALLY don't seem to like me (maybe it's a personal issue?) so I don't typically have much luck. These I shot last September in Cal City. I don't think he was willing to share his lunch... Shot with my 20D and 100-400 :D

[rooeey]

I like the first one most...
How would it looked cropped eliminating the wires...???

[hlcowan]

Rooeey, were you thinking of something more along these lines? Photoshop is DEFINITELY my weakest point... but I'm working on it. I really appreciate the input - now that I've finally captured a few digitally, I want to work on taking more "wow" photos than "oh a bird" photos. Maybe it would help to deepen the hue of the sky, and lighten the hawk's face? Thank you for any and all c&c!!

[jlcarnagey]

Looks like he has a chipmunk in the second one. Tasty snack.

[OUTLAW PHOTO]

hlcowan, since you have image editing OK, I went ahead and tweaked this a little for you. You didn't have a whole lot to work with in size,but I did the best I could in 30 seconds. In CS3 I hit it with Levels(manualy adjusted), a touch in saturation(didn't need much) ran it through shadow and highlight(this made the most diff.) and noise ninja. Also pumped it up from 200ppi to 300 ( just for a more workable size. Hope you don't mind. :)

[hlcowan]

Outlaw Photo - I don't mind at all - and thank you! Especially for listing the steps you took-what an improvement! I reduced the resolution to be able to upload it.. Is there a better way to reduce the size for web, but still leave the PPI at a higher level?

Jlcarnagey - the second photo was the hawk leaving with the headless body to go and finish in peace (without me). I believe it was a Mojave Ground Squirrel; but I could be mistaken ;) I have a photo before these two where he was ripping the head off.. but it was a bit blurry :(

[Anke]

Aww man, that's creepy!! Well spotted.