Stunned…

Only one photos to post today — and this week. This is a photo of a female Downy Woodpecker (the males have red on their heads) who sort of paid us a visit when were were staying at the Disney Fort Wilderness Campground 10 days ago.

I out riding my bicycle, and had just pulled up outside our RV, when I heard a thud and this little bird fell to the ground—on its back. She had flown right into one of the windows in our RV (you cannot see in the windows, and this has happened before). The people from the RV next to us came over, and all of us stood around, looking at this poor bird that appeared to be dead. After what seemed like a very long time the bird rolled over and just sat there. She must have been stunned, but she was alive and alert. After I took a series of photos I went back out on my bike. When I returned about a half hour lat, she had flown away, hopefully a wiser bird!

A bit on the workflow I use to digitally develop a photo. 

First, I import my photos into Adobe Lightroom;  sorting the photos, deleting the the unacceptable photos and selecting the ones I want to work with.

Next, I "develop" the photo in Lightroom, cropping if necessary and making adjustments to exposure, contrast, color casts, etc.

I then open the adjusted photo in Adobe Photoshop and "tweak" it with minor contrast adjustments to makes it "pop." I will also apply small amounts of sharpening, as needed.

Finally, I bring the image back into Lightroom for any final adjustments (in this case I cropped it a bit more). I do most of my printing in Lightroom, and from there I also export photos for uploading to the photo blog or my website.