Can I improve on this with PP

I pulled this panorama from competition, thought it needed more...but I don't know what.

FYI-it is tack sharp at 100%.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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I think the problem is the white line of the grasses in the water to the upper right. It immediately draws my eye. Would some selective dodging and burning help!

14,000 pixels wide. What did you do, shoot this with a Mamiya digital back?

I think the basic problem with this image is that the grass is in full sun and the birds wander in and out of the shade. The bright grass draws the eye. It's a shame that the setting is flawed because you really captured a moment. A different time of day might help, but how often are you going to see this?

joedlh wrote in post #5936595
14,000 pixels wide. What did you do, shoot this with a Mamiya digital back?

I think the basic problem with this image is that the grass is in full sun and the birds wander in and out of the shade. The bright grass draws the eye. It's a shame that the setting is flawed because you really captured a moment. A different time of day might help, but how often are you going to see this?

From your comment I am guessing that you haven't deduced that this is the same bird, and it's a stitched pano.

I agree that the bright grass is what's hurting the image. If it was me, I would shoot the panorama without the bird exposing for the foliage. Then I would shoot the bird and water exposing for that. Composite the images together.

There is a natural line in this image just below the line of the grass entering the water.
I'll bet you could cut the image and work a little exposure and gradient magice and paste it back together. Or just dodge and burn.

I know it is sort of gimmicky, but with this particular version of the image it may be the perfect time for a selective color on black and white image. The BLUE heron is the focus, and you have captured that steely blue real nicely - I also think that the blue coloring will be subtle for a selective color piece versus the typical red rose on a B&W background. Try converting a duplicated layer to B&W or partially desaturated layer and masking back in the heron image sequence, both in the herons themselves and their reflections. Also, you may want to treat the B&W background by making it appear translucent, so that it is again deemphasized, as it is a little distracting (especially at the left of the image, where my eye wants to return to fly through the sequence again). This will hopefully put more emphasis on the cool pano sequence you've captured and deemphasize the bright white spots at the base of the grass, etc. that is confusing the image a little. i am making these judgments on the relatively tiny preview of the huge original, so what I see here may be less confusing at full res.

I think it is okay to make this image more art-y as opposed to a pure documentary photo because of the multiple exposures of the great bird in flight.

Neat sequence - I believe, Ahab, you have finally caught your great Blue whale.

Kirk

Kirk, those selective B&W things aren't my forte and arty just isn't my bag. But thanks for looking and offering.

Joe, LD, and poloman, I see where your coming from, lemme see what I can do with it.

Thanks guys!

Cool. I will be interested to see how you work this one out, because it is a real nice concept.

this is the type of image which asks to be played with

here is what I would try:

-don't know if it will work, but I would try an exercise of simplifying
-the first image of the bird at the left is distracting with the circular branches (the eye keeps going there), that part of the image is not in harmony with the other birds. So I would crop that bird and the circular branches off. You can see that the reflection of the first image of the bird is also less defined than the other reflections.
-as others have mentioned the grass presents a problem. I would also crop down from the top so that the grasses are not such a dominant part of the image. You see the big bush or part of a tree which is about one third from the right. I would crop just below that bush. That would have the effect of simplifying the look of the grasses
-there is still the problem of the bright part of the grass which draws the eye. I would experiment with a number of different "toning" techniques. First try dodging and burning. if that doesn't work try doing a selection which would enable you to make the birds more prominent and push the background into a less dominant aspect of the image (I know this last approach could be time consuming)

my two cents..

You could pump out 100 other variations...But your gonna get varying opinions on wich one is the favorite. I like it as is!

If I had one nit-pick it would be the whitness at the base of the reeds...But you would have to be carful not to change the tone, temp, or colour of the rest of the image. (Perhaps, a little more yellowish reedish coulour in them)

One additional thought...Often times competitions will list what criteria a submission will be judged on, somtimes you can get some insight on where it may fall short on the score card buy considering this. (I've noticed one once where presentation was 30% of the score...was it a photo contest or a matting/framing competition)

To me the bird's color is too close to the background color. (Blue/green) Somehow or another if you can make the bird stand out more, it would help, but I'm not sure how.

Is this a better direction? yes/no/garish...
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I had a bit of a go at this. Tried to paint in some colour over the stark white reeds. Replaced some reeds to break up the continuity of the overexposed areas. Deepened the shadow on the left to enhance depth. Brightened the heron.

original -> edit
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chauncey, i like the first ones color of the birds. nice dark blue instead of the lighter color u chose.

i agree with everyone else, the white of the reeds is the first thing that draws the eyes so they have to go. As well as the white branch (on the left side) that crosses into the first bird.

Pretty sure that this is it, had to start over.

Wanted to draw the eye away from the shore and to the bird.
Did the magic wand thing on the birds and saturated the birds a little and desaturated the backgroung a little, then color corrected globally.
Did nothing to make it "pop", wanted it as it was, kinda mute as at 6 AM.

Comments...
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