Friends, this is another animated gif showing the adjustments that i made to this image, so that the image follows my rules more closely.  In short, I simplified the background and darkened a bit, cleaned up the eye, lightened the shadow on the front of the bird, and cleaned up the food on his bill and ran detail extractor from Color Effex Pro 4.    I am learning a lot from Arthur Morris website Birdsasart, his site makes good reading for the curious (like me). This is one of the  Redpolls who come to my bird feeder every day.  Winter is my time to study up for the other three seasons.  til Tomorrow MJ