New PP Routine with Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta)

[Gerald Kelberg]

I have been trying to learn a new PP routine and for no particular reason, this Avocet shot from July 2009 came to hand - one of a series that I hadn't had much joy with processing back then. Objective has been to present better IQ - good detail, minimized noise, sharp but not crisp.

So how am I looking? Feedback very much appreciated!

Canon 1D MkIII, EF500 f/4L IS USM, 1.4x Mk II
700mm, 1/2000 sec at f/7.1, ISO 400
DPP, Photoshop, Neat Image

Thanks for looking,

Gerald

[Arthur Morris]

My first impression is that the head is not very crisp with detail, possibly too much lightening or NR??? I can't wait to get to Texel next spring!

[Arthur Morris]

Arash, are you there? I'd love to hear what you have to say about IQ here.

[Miguel Palaviccini]

I'm going to have to agree with Artie - the image just looks a bit soft. I always find that resizing and then sharpening goes a long way (as compared to sharpening and then resizing). Not sure if that is the 'issue' here, but thought I would throw that out there.

[Arthur Morris]

I'm going to have to agree with Artie - the image just looks a bit soft. I always find that resizing and then sharpening goes a long way (as compared to sharpening and then resizing). Not sure if that is the 'issue' here, but thought I would throw that out there.


Confused; did Gerald say that he sharpened and then re-sized???

[arash_hazeghi]

nice low angle, soft light and good exposure

I agree with the above, it looks a bit soft to me as well. I think it the original capture is sharp but it has not been sharpened well enough at the last step. Sharpening is always needed after resizing.

Hey Gerald, did you do the final sharpening on the JPEG as explained in the guide?


This would be my preference on sharpening (I used exactly the same values in the last section of the guide). I didn't mask the BG, so it got noisy after sharpening and there is halo around the bird. starting from RAW will fix this issues.

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[arash_hazeghi]

here is with a quick and dirty BG mask to avoid noise and sharpening halos

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[Marina Scarr]

Stunning image. Love the pose, the light. Good exposure. Looks like a sharpening issue rather than IQ. That red eye is gorgeous and love the raised foot.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Many thanks for your comments - even with the help of Ari's excellent guide this is quite a learning curve.

Although I hadn't mentioned it, Miguel is correct, I had sharpened the full size image, but this obviously wasn't enough when I reduced for output.

This time, I have cropped to 2x the output width, given 2 passes of Smart Sharpen and then gone to Save for Web. Seems to have made quite a difference. FWIW, I also did the same sharpening regime on the output size - it looked horrible!

So many thanks for your feedback: Ari - the second attachment didn't open for me, don't know why not, but thanks for everything. Marina, thanks for the kind words - Avocets are wonderful models. Artie, this was actually taken in the southern Netherlands, in Zeeland, but for sure, you will have a ball in Texel!

Gerald

[arash_hazeghi]

Hey Gerald,

Do all the noise reduction and adjustments at full size. then resize to 1024 pixels and sharpen last step. if you sharpen before resize it won't look good

here is the attachment again, not sure what happened to it


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[Gerald Kelberg]

Thanks Ari. Yes, I'm carrying out all the PP at full size. I'll work through a few more examples and sharpen only at the last step to see if that is going to work for me.

Appreciate your help. I had always imagined that DPP was complicated and difficult to work, but I'm finding that once you know how, the conversion results are much better than Lightroom.

Regards,

Gerald

[Arthur Morris]

And much better than ACR too. Arash is a pretty smart fella.....

[DanieBenade]

Nits covered, like the low angle, nice pose and well exposed. Good shot.

[Gerald Kelberg]

And much better than ACR too. Arash is a pretty smart fella.....

Pretty handy with a camera, too.....

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very killer bird! love the colours on this one, the light, raised foot and red eye. Arash repost works best.