I have some bird images that I took on my first trip to Africa, which I printed to fill a frame with 4 – 5″ x 5″ openings. While I see it every day, I haven’t really given it much thought in years. But today when I looked at it, I wondered if with the skills and software I have now, I could improve upon those images.
All of these were shot in raw format with a Nikon D5100 with a 55-300mm kit lens. I did the best I could at the time with editing them, but we all know that software has come a long way in the last 6 years, not to mention there has been a ton of room for improvement in my skills with editing (and still so much to learn).
A lot of these were taken during the harsh light of midday; but when you are out and about, you shoot what you see, when you see it. You never know if you’ll even see the same species of bird again, let alone have another opportunity to photograph it. And as it stands, after 6 trips to Africa, I have only seen carmine bee-eaters on that very first trip while in Zambia, so I am glad I did capture what images I could 🙂
For each image, first is the original edit, and second is the updated edit.
I think in every case, the re-edit made substantial improvement. As soon as I remember to pick up a replacement light magenta ink cartridge for my printer, I am going to reprint these and replace the original images in that old frame.
I have a few other ideas of images I would like to explore from my archive, so watch this space in the coming weeks and months.
Have a great week!