"hot" Pelican

Sometimes you're photographing in the worst possible light. We are with Nik's Laurie and Tony at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, hoping for clouds.....but, not in San Diego! The contrast was so high on the original image that it was barely manageable, highlights still blown out in the bird and not quite black enough in the background. Being an avid Nik user, I was sufficiently able to Nik-o-fy this image to a whole new interpretation using Midnight from the Color Efex Pro collection, which added the "glow." Then I used Viveza2 to brighten up the feet, the front of the beak, and the tail, then to completely blacken the background.