Editing and Over-editing Bird Photographs
It happens to the best of us at one time or another: we over-edit a bird photograph in our quest for the best, or maybe just to save an almost-good photo.
What do I mean by an "over-edited" bird photograph? Well, I mean any bird photograph where it's plain to see that the photograph has been edited well beyond what the photographer and camera actually saw. This can take many forms, but some of the more common over-edits I see daily on Facebook birding groups include: oversaturated colours, colour tone shifts, over-sharpening, object removal, and background replacements.
I should state right here that I'm talking about bird photographs that are presented as documentary photos, where fidelity to the visual elements of the species and its environment are important. There's wiggle room for some editing in documentary photos, especially when you consider that any RAW format photo needs to be edited (sharpness, colour, exposure), but also because lighting and colour cast can create photos that, even with only basic editing, show colour that doesn't match the species. So, if you photograph a bird in early morning light, you're going to get the effect of "golden hour" lighting, which might change the colour of the bird's plumage from what it "should" be under neutral lighting. Do you adjust colour temperature to match the bird with what it should look like? Or do you stay true to the moment and show what the bird did look like in that lighting? That's some of the wiggle room at play in editing documentary bird photographs.
In most of the Facebook birding groups I view, any photograph that's posted with only the species name and a description of when and where the photo was taken is making a claim to be a documentary photo. "This is a Blue-headed Vireo I photographed yesterday in my local birding patch." Most photos I view in FB birding groups make this sort of claim. Some will actually state what editing they performed or what special effect or filter they applied, but not many.
So, I'm not talking about photographs where the photographer intentionally pushes towards artistic presentation, where fidelity to the visual elements of the bird, its environment, and to the moment are far less important than visual effect. There's a spectrum between unedited and heavily edited bird photographs that would make for a very fine, and long, discussion. Here, though, I only want to focus on documentary bird photography and one common kind of over-editing.
Object Removal
The form of over-editing I want to focus on here is object removal, which is normally the removal of branches, leaves, sticks, and other items that make for a messy or busy background. This isn't quite the same as background replacement, but it is in the same same ballpark.
I will sometimes remove a branch or leaf that creates a distraction or prevents a really good photograph from being a great photograph. Most of the time, this is a branch that sticks out over an otherwise smooth area of bokeh or that comes too close to the bird and creates a distraction.
I try to keep this removal to a minimum for many reasons: the more I remove, the less true to the moment the photograph is; object removal takes time (well done object removal takes longer) and the results aren't always worth the effort; it's tempting and easy to go too far, especially with the incredible tools available in software like Photoshop; and if I remove something from one photo in a series, I might need to remove it from every other photo I use from that series, which multiplies the time it takes for editing. So, I try to keep this kind of heavy editing to a minimum.
Example #1
Below is an example of what I would consider minor object removal. A small snag on the perch branch created a minor distraction. Normally, I wouldn't have edited this out, but I wanted to create an example using a Blue-headed Vireo for this blog!
![]() |
Before: Blue-headed Vireo with small snag touching the breast area. |
![]() |
After: Blue-headed Vireo with small snag removed. |
Example #2:
Here's another example of a relatively minor object removal, but one that I felt was more important to the overall photo. In the first photo, you can see an L-shaped branched in the top right corner. I didn't like that, so with some Photoshop magic, I removed it. I don't think the removal has much negative impact on the photo.
When the two photos are compared, it's possible to see the artefacts of my editing, but when you don't have the original to look at, it's much more difficult to know there was an edit.
![]() |
Before: Blue-headed Vireo with distracting branch in top right corner. |
![]() |
After: Blue-headed Vireo with distracting branch removed. |
Example #3
Here's an example of object removal that I think goes too far:
![]() |
Before: Nice orange-green autumnal bokeh but branches create very busy background. |
![]() |
After: Most of the branches have been removed, but it just doesn't look natural. |
In the after image, the bird looks quite detached from the background (especially around the breast and head), almost as if it was a composite image. Perhaps a better edit would have helped, but the photo looks like I was more interested in the autumnal bokeh in the background than in the bird in the foreground. The background and foreground don't feel particularly well integrated to me.
I find this to be a very common error in judgement in the bird photography I see daily, even from some excellent photographers. Isolating the bird from its background becomes so important that all other environmental elements are removed, which can create a very unnatural appearance.
Conclusion:
That's it for this post. It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, but maybe that'll change now that the frenzy of fall migration is settling down.