Advice on crop + PP

I was messing around in the yard and caught this Image of a Chickadee in flight. I ran it through a little sharpening and saturation correction in Faststone Image Viewer on my laptop and cropped it a bit. Everybody that's seen it has wanted a print of it, but I don't feel as though it's in a state worthy of passing around.

If someone could give me a little advice as to how to make it a little sharper, and not so dull it would be great. I don't have Photoshop, but I do have the trial of Lightroom, I just hate to use it because it really kills my 800Mhz Toughbook Laptop.

Aside from the PP, how did I do on the cropping? That's the only thing I think I was close on, but your input would be appreciated. I'm not sure if I have Image Editing turned on, but here's a link to the original raw:

And here's the shot in question:

Thanks for your help and comments.

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Red X on my monitor.

snyderman wrote in post #7848576
Red X on my monitor.

Well, mine too. It was there a minute ago. I'll see what I can do.

i love it great composition andthe X is sharp

chrisu002 wrote in post #7848647
i love it great composition andthe X is sharp

Yeah, all these guys with a red 'L' got nothing on me.

EOSNewbie wrote in post #7848655
Yeah, all these guys with a red 'L' got nothing on me.

now that i see the picture it seems like the focus is on the tree not the bird, it should be the other way around but i am sure you know that.

Yeah, The Chickadees were rooting around in there for grubs and I had the focus set for the stump, Had the camera on tripod with remote shutter and caught him on his approach.

Kind of another question to go along with the rest.

After this series I noticed that my 40D was set for S-RAW + M quality. Is there better chance for recovery of exposure and sharpening if using full size RAW? Or does it not matter?

My crop preference (still needs brightness, contrast, sharpness adjustment etc.):

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That's a good point Tony, I'm very green when it comes to composition and post processing, very green to photography in general. So I take away from this 1) Focus subject, 2) Don't chop stuff up when cropping, 3) X's can be just as sharp as "L's" when incorectly used

Thanks for your comments.

D.

Here's my edit...

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EOSNewbie wrote in post #7848396
If someone could give me a little advice as to how to make it a little sharper, and not so dull it would be great.

I hafta tell ya: I wouldn't change a thing. I like the crop -- I think it works nicely. And the softness of the image actually enhances the effect here. If anything I would back off the sharpness (there's a small halo around the bird) and let folks appreciate the dreamy art-y effect here.

i love the crop, kinds gives me that story telling feel.

I like your original crop, I think it works really well. I think the image could be sharper and I don't like how the top of the broken branch/tree is blue in the original edit.

here's my edit. I took a shot at a different crop, I kinda like it but the original crop might be better. I did some selective sharpening and adjustments in photoshop. I tried to bring out the details in the the foreground subject (bird and broken branch) and still keep the background soft. I also did some noise reduction.

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@ Malcolm:

I too had tried making similar adjustments, but on paper the shadow areas turned out very dark, in fact almost pure black.

@jgrussell:

Thanks for your kind words

@ stunman16;

I like your crop much better, I wouldn't have thought to try a portrait orientation.

The portrait crop works better for this one in my opinion.