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Seeing such great photographs from all of you I was ashamed to put some pics of my own. But then I realised till I do not put pics and get feedbacks from all of you, how would I realise what wrong am I doing and proceed further.

So here I am posting a pic of a "Maina" bird, and would like all the Guru's to comment about it so that I can make it better next time.

The things I have done to the pic
1. Crop
2. Sharpen
3. Used the luminance curve (just played with it, no idea what I was doing actually)




Thanks
Dhiraj

@deky: Nice photograph, its a eye level shot. The bird is a red vented bulbul. To start you can work on the composition a bit, you have tried a different angle to catch this bird to avoid the grill in the front, that would have given an even bg throughout without distractions, You say you have sharpened the image but the details are a bit soft on the bird, you could try unsharp mask in CS and you will definitely find it more sharp. Next time you focus set the focus point to the eye, if that's in sharp focus nothing like it. Hope its ok and you don't mind that i provided a critique. What equipment do you use btw?

I just tried to re-edit your image, i did a shoddy job but i would have preferred the compo this way

Wow, that certainly looks better. The comments are most welcome, thats how I will learn to be a better photographer. For eg:- focussing on the eye is a great idea.

By the way what do u mean by "try the unsharp mask in CS"???

And sorry for calling a bulbul a maina.

I am using Sony A200 with Kit 18-70mm lens and 70-300 Minolta AF lens.

@deky
I would tell you ditto what Redrage just said! Nice start!

One more from my 50mm.



Regards,
TG.

Unsharp mask is the perfect filtering tool available in PS to make softer subjects look sharper. Try it out.... Youtube certainly will have simple tutorials on this. You may need to play around with the amount, threshold and the radius depending on the type of photograph (landscape, macro etc), its resolution etc.

I don't frequent these parts often, hears a pic taken in 2007 when I had taken my team from a drive.

Thank you Redrage, TG and clevermax for all the imputs. I have tried to re do the photo as you guys suggested. Do you think its better now?

@deky
Looks a little oversaturated to me.

The California coastline, just before the storm struck.

Regards,
TG.

TG, my sincere suggestion to you is this: Get out of pseudo HDR treatment.

In fact get out of this HDR trip.

Once in million HDR gives realistic tonal balance.
It does look dramatic, I agree. But it kills your sense for right exposure.

Over and above, if you're not super experienced with photoshop or any other edit software.. flaws will stick out like a sore thumb.

I hope you'll take my views in right spirit.

Is that the lone cyprus.
Agree with Rudra here. The tone is off

@Rudra
Thanks for that Rudra. I got what you said. This was not exactly a psuedo HDR, since i generated the 3 Exposures in photoshop and then merged them in photomatix. But yes, i totally got what you said and it is a pleasure to hear you critique my work :) I will as always take your critique very seriously and work on it.

@TSK
:(

Thanks,
Regards,
TG.

1. Dubai as seen from a plane
2. Clouds

Comments and criticism would be appreciated from experts.

@chevelle,

2 pic is awesome, good capture. Feels like heaven.

@torqueguru, the coastline picture is good. Nevertheless, the Guru has a good feedback on the picture, which also applies to lot of my work as well.

All I would say is Learn, Learn, Learn and Finally Excel!

@Rudra
I worked on that shot for an hour after i returned from class today. Was seriously inspired after reading your comment.
Here is the result. This time, i did the exposure blending manually in photoshop.Waiting for more critique.



@piper
Well, when gurus advice, shishyas follow :)

Regards,
TG.

This is much much better. Much more balanced tone, and more appealing. Where is this place? The lone cyprus?
Next time you get a chance, try this with a ND filter, With a 0.5 second exposure, you will see that the water gets a dreamier quality, and if the clouds are not moving too fast, you still freeze the motion.