I like the 2nd better because it is lighter on my desktop screen . I'll have to look at them on the laptop to see if there is any difference there. I tried calabrating the desktop with not much luck. They seem to be shot with the same settings on each according to the EXIF data. Did you just change the lighting in PS ? If your focus point was on the white you might try bumping up the ISO a bit as the Rebel has a hard time focusing on solid white, and any solid colros with out much definations. Where is that bird ? She is beautiful.
Katz