Wedge-tailed Eagle

[CMunzel]

I took this shot of a Wedge-tailed eagle this morning. Lots of technical challenges with poor light and a washed out sky (replaced in this photo).  I'd appreciate feedback on this version.

[Clicker]

 Replacing a sky is a very tricky  business for many reasons in my opinion.. If you replace  a sky ...or in fact any background in which you want  it to appear realistic (as opposed to an obvious unrealistic textured background for instance) , the first thing you need to establish  is  the quality and direction of light in the original  image... That light affects the subject  in many ways;  such as the colour, where the light and shade falls  and  the contrast that is manifested by that light . If any of these attributes are not synchronised with the effects that  the new  background would  instigate, then it becomes difficult for the result   to  look authentic  and  not appear  to have been  artificially  composed . It's even harder to do well if you are  needing to select a feathered profile  or  a head of hair against an uncluttered background . The second thing ensure is that  the  resolution  of both aspects of the composite  match . It's no good cropping and then selecting  a  subject and then placing that  version  into a background that has more pixels per inch unless you keep the selected image  at it's original resolution ....or of course reduce the resolution of the background to match . Was the  eagle actually on that post Cheryl on the original pic? ... it would be  helpful  to see the original  I think too ...

 I  hope you don't see any of my comments as a negative reaction to your post Cheryl ... I hope that maybe your original pic  could be processed in order to mitigate the  poor light and  flat sky without  replacing it ... 

[CMunzel]

Thank you very much for the feedback, Polly. I’m on a learning curve. I’ll post the original pic tonight as a starting point.