So I had some moderate success with my new EF 300/4L IS, photographing a sparkling violetear. Such an incredibly beautiful bird.


Here is a 50% crop.


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As you can see, there are some white specks on the bird's plumage. I could easily clone these out. But at the same time, I wonder if I should even do it at all, since the specks were really on the bird. Yet I do find the spots rather distracting; I feel they detract from the image, and I didn't exactly have the luxury of taking a brush and dusting him off, or running him under the kitchen sink.


So what do you think? Should I keep the white specks, or clone them out? Where would you draw the line on such things? I could just maintain two versions of course. But for me I think this is a definite gray area. Color balance, sharpening, and contrast adjustments are okay with me because the idea is to get closer to what one saw. But this feels different to me.