GBH liftoff choice

Either/or...B&W or Color

B/W for me

I prefer the black and white, but I think the highlights need a little adjusting to make the birds pop. Nothing super contrasty, just enough to clean up the muddy greys that could be a little brighter. Keep the shadows behind them to help them stand out even though you lost a little leaf detail.

And this is totally personal preference here, but the scum on the water looks a bit nasty. I'm curious how it would look if you cropped in a little more - you would lose the nice reflections, but eliminate the nasty scum.

Black and white with more contrast as well for me.

Totally agree about the contrast and would try to either clone or dodge those sticks to the right of the third heron.

To add contrast to the birds only means I gotta make selections of each bird...right?

Cortney...you mean get rid of the branches?

Sorry I meant branches and the darken tool is actually the burn one. However, they seem resistant to this tool being weathered and bleached.

chauncey wrote in post #11294867
To add contrast to the birds only means I gotta make selections of each bird...right?

Cortney...you mean get rid of the branches?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I thought the entire print looked muddy. That means the contrast doesn't need adjusting as much as the highlights need to be cleaned up. If you're using photoshop (quick fix here) try going into the curves window and playing with the highlights while leaving the shadows alone.

Conversely, you could go back to your B&W conversion method and tweak it. How did you convert it? Desaturate? If you can give us a little more info about how you converted it, the gurus on this board (I am not one ) can give you a few pointers on how to make the image pop.