Advice please. On a moose.

[Hunter]

I have never posted here. I would love to start doing so. I know nothing about photography. But I know the bush and try's to catch some of what I see daily living and working in the wilderness.
Questions about equipment and shutter speed and all of that are falling on def ears here. But I am researching and reading and browsing and learning as fast as I can.
Here is a shot up for critique.
http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb339/Huntercanada/004ba364.jpg

[Mad Aussie]

Excellent composition here, I really like the negative (also called active) space you've left. By this I mean there's enough photo off to the left for me to follow the gaze of the moose and wonder what he/she is looking at. If anything, the moose could even be a little more to the right, giving just a bit more space on the left.

Sharpness looks very good, especially that all important eye.

The only thing I can see that really needs attention is the yellow cast which I think is caused by the white balance being off a little. If your editing tool has a colour balance feature then I'd bring in a bit of blue to counter that or if you shot in RAW format you may be able to correct it before most of the editing.

Good shot ... like the tongue :)

[Iguanasan]

MA's pretty much covered all the high points but I just wanted to chime in and say that it's an excellent shot. The depth of field is excellent putting the moose in sharp focus and creating a blur in the background. The grass in the background does seem to be the wrong colour. It could be the yellow cast that MA sees or maybe you were a little to heavy handed with a saturation slider?

[Hunter]

You are both spot on. I had never taken a try at any kind of editing. I have never even cropped a shot of mine before. But I want to learn. And have great respect for the work on here that I see.
Here is the raw shot. Bfore I tried playing with it.
http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb339/Huntercanada/002439fc.jpg

[Iguanasan]

Don't give up. You have a marvelous image to start with and a touch of post processing can knock it out of the park. The big thing to learn (and I struggled with it myself) is that "less is more". Unless you are trying to dramatically change the image you should only notice very minor adjustments for each of the changes you make. For instance, if you boost saturation you might want to only boost it 5% or 10% rather than 40% or higher. If you can "see" a saturation boost then you probably overdid it. Does that make sense?

[Bambi]

nothing to add to the excellent advice you've already had! I just wanted to say 'welcome' :) and I hope to see more wildlife shots

[Marko]

Good advice you are getting here - i too noticed the cast and the saturation immediately, but the shot is strong, sharp and casts and oversaturation can be corrected and played with until you are satisfied.