IMAGE RESCURE

This bird shot is full of detail but needs some lighting and colour

The original raw file gives plenty of lovely feather detail here, but the lighting is flat and the colours are washed out.

Using Lightroom, you can easily resolve these issues.

To start, I’m going to crop out a little of the white sky above the owl’s head. The next task is to warm the image up. Taking the White Balance Selector Dropper and clicking on a neutral area (such as the sky) will instantly improve it.

The stray grass in the foreground is annoying and draws attention away from the subject. Using the Spot Removal Tool, I can get rid of this. With the Clone Brush, I take out the bits I don’t want and allow Lightroom to sample from other similar areas. You may need to manually adjust the areas it samples for best results.

To bring out the yellow of the owl’s eyes and beak, I go to the HSL panel, select the yellow slider and boost Saturation slightly. Finally in the Basic panel, I add a little Contrast and Clarity then very slightly boost the overall Saturation. Give the image more warmth by clicking the White Balance Selector Dropper on the sky. Remove the stray piece of grass that’s cutting across the foreground with the Clone Brush. Boost the owl’s eyes using the yellow Saturation slider in Lightroom’s HSL panel. Improve overall contrast and colour with some fine adjustments in the Basics panel.