Goose - Thoughts?

What would you change or do differently? Taken with a T1i and 50mm 1.8.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/joshuaat/732223​5792/

looks like a ugly duckling to me

Pixil Studio wrote in post #14521587
looks like a ugly duckling to me

Could you give helpful criticism, please?

sharpen it
bump the gamma
eat him for dinner

I like the photo, but the light was not your friend on the whites of his neck....focus is great on his face and bill area. Read your histogram when the lighting situations are harsh( midday etc), and compensate your settings.

Thank you both for your helpful advice.

BTW, sharpening a blown area only gives you a sharp blown area, lol. No sharp. Just keep on enjoying learning!

darken the neck a bit - too bright.

quack ...

top of the neck is too white and blown out the bottom of the neck is too dark and under his beak/jaw area it just turns to black goo. the shadow is also quite harsh.

Something like this might be better shot with a little more of an overcast day or under some shade where the bright direct sunlight isn't going to give you nasty conrast and hard shadows.

Hope this helps a little, keep up the learning though

I think it's a cool shot. If you shot in RAW you can probably fix both the blown out white and blacked out shadows by making clones and blending layers. If not then you could fix the white by selectively cloning in some of the white detail area into the blown spots. I'd also brighten the eye a bit.