Barn Owl in flight

[Dan Brown]

I have been lucky with a couple Barn Owls lately! Here's one from last night. It was back lit and I didn't compensate for it completely, so I had to recover and reduce noise. I don't know about my processing here? Maybe over cooked? C&C welcome.

Camera Model: NIKON D800, handheld
Shutter speed: 1/2000 sec
Aperture: 6.3
Exposure mode: Manual
Exposure compensation: +1 1/3
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 2000, auto ISO
Lens: 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6
Focal length: 400mm
Focal length: 400mm (in 35mm film)
AF mode: AF-C

[arash_hazeghi]

nice getting one of these in fight in daylight. there might be a slight yellow cast from the back light but you handled it well. details are quite good. The d800 saved the day for you!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Looks pretty good to me! I in fact, have no pictures of this gorgeous owl species!. I would be happy with it!

[Arthur Morris]

Wonderful bird, wonderful image. Love the full downstroke. So much for the folks who state that the 80-400 is worthless for flight photography...

[Melissa Groo]

Spectacular, Dan! Just love that light shining through the wings. Wonderful wing position and look at you. Nice interest in the sky behind. Great work!

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Great pose and HA and such a pretty sky

[Kerry Perkins]

Dan, this is a wonderful image and I don't really know what I would change... The "internal" lighting of the feathers is beautiful. What a great opportunity and yeoman's work to make the capture so nicely.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Dan, great flying posture, and the eye contact makes this image. Love the sky BG, and I would take a touch off the top.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Dan, lovely BO flight image, head to camera is the icing for me.

Certainly, as Arash mentioned, addressing the yellow in the image, then using a Luminosity layer to bolster the depth, then a B/W copy of the Blue channel in Curves just takes this up a notch and gives structure to that lovely backlit wing spread, very nice indeed.

Dan I just wonder if we are not getting the full potential of the image, as it's untagged and has no Colour profile embedded, just a thought?

TFS
Steve

[Karl Egressy]

Good shooting anle, nice flight pose and good PP work, Dan.

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Beautiful bird, I like the wing position and head turn, comp works for me. Congrats! Superb image.

[Dan Brown]

Hi Dan, lovely BO flight image, head to camera is the icing for me.

Certainly, as Arash mentioned, addressing the yellow in the image, then using a Luminosity layer to bolster the depth, then a B/W copy of the Blue channel in Curves just takes this up a notch and gives structure to that lovely backlit wing spread, very nice indeed.

Dan I just wonder if we are not getting the full potential of the image, as it's untagged and has no Colour profile embedded, just a thought?

TFS
SteveThanks, all. Steve, the color profile is sRGB. I don't know why breezebrowser doesn't see this? I see several opinions on which space to use, sRGB or Adobe98?
Thanks for the pp tips. I tried a luminosity layer but must not be doing something right (I placed it above all layers?). As for the BW copy of the Blue channel, how is this done? Thanks again for the help!

[Steve Kaluski]

Dan, the Blue channel is a little more complicated, but you can get away without it, or try using Levels & the mid tone slider.

1. Start with your final image that you have presented, flattened, no layers and it is an RGB file.
2. Duplicate the layer
3. In PS top tool bar go to Window and click on Channels
4. You will have a window with the RGB channel, Red, Blue & Green channel
5. Click on the RGB channel whilst holding the Ctrl or CMd key down (PC or Mac)
6. The image should then have the 'marching ants'
7. Now go back to the layers panel, click on the Duplicated layer, then at the bottom of the Layers window you will see an sq icon with a circle in it, click on that
8. You should then have a B/W image to the right of the Duplicated layer
9. If so go to the top part of the layers window where you see Normal, click on this and change it to Multiply, it should now have gone more saturated
10. To the right is Opacity, move the slider to the left watch the colour decrease, move it to the desired level
11. On the same duplicated layer, create a new mask and fill black
12. Highlight the mask to activate it, then with a paintbrush, paint white to 'Reveil' the new layer
13. Once happy either save or flatten, job done.

Dan if I hold the ctrl, fn keys down, right click and save image, PS says it has an untagged profile?

Hope this helps

Cheers
Steve

[dankearl]

Great shot and very hard to get a daytime view of these guys.
I would love to have these, well done.

[Dan Brown]

Dan, the Blue channel is a little more complicated, but you can get away without it, or try using Levels & the mid tone slider.

1. Start with your final image that you have presented, flattened, no layers and it is an RGB file.
2. Duplicate the layer
3. In PS top tool bar go to Window and click on Channels
4. You will have a window with the RGB channel, Red, Blue & Green channel
5. Click on the RGB channel whilst holding the Ctrl or CMd key down (PC or Mac)
6. The image should then have the 'marching ants'
7. Now go back to the layers panel, click on the Duplicated layer, then at the bottom of the Layers window you will see an sq icon with a circle in it, click on that
8. You should then have a B/W image to the right of the Duplicated layer
9. If so go to the top part of the layers window where you see Normal, click on this and change it to Multiply, it should now have gone more saturated
10. To the right is Opacity, move the slider to the left watch the colour decrease, move it to the desired level
11. On the same duplicated layer, create a new mask and fill black
12. Highlight the mask to activate it, then with a paintbrush, paint white to 'Reveil' the new layer
13. Once happy either save or flatten, job done.

Dan if I hold the ctrl, fn keys down, right click and save image, PS says it has an untagged profile?

Hope this helps

Cheers
SteveThanks, Steve! Great info. I am posting another shot of the Owl where I used these techniques. Thanks! PS, I don't have an fn key on my keyboard, I haven't a clue regarding the tagged profile?