Leopard

[Anette Mossbacher]

Found this leopard after 2 days searching in Etosha.

MK III
ISO 640
f/6.3 1/2500 -0.33
Lens 70-200 II & 1.4 ~ 255mm
was at 6:05pm

Clean up a few rocks, levels, contrast, sharpening with NIK.


<iframe width="468" height="60" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://mer54715.datafeedfile.com/widget/aff_widget_prdt_generate-2.0.php?aff_num=10536&aff_net=1&widget_num=1879"><p>Sorry your browser does not support iFrame</p></iframe>

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love the sneaky pose and the light on the leopard here Anette.
I feel you could get a bit more sharpness/clarity out of the leopard, and I'd step back on the blacks a bit as they look choked up?
Did you try running it through the other sharpening actions now? :w3
I would crop some off the top too, losing most of the dark brown upper left corner.

[Ed Grella]

Anette, this capture would make an interesting pano if you crop it just below the rock at the left center of this photo.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Anette - I like the slinky pose. Good suggestions above. In addition to Morkel's suggestions, I might burn the highlights on the leopard about 5% or so. I too would crop some from the top.

TFS,
Rachel

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi all,

thank you very much for your help and suggestions.

Morkel I had to run the Action from you twice to get the image as it is now.
First I had it cropped as you suggested lowered the crop and burned out the dark area in the left with clone stamp to about 40-50%. That worked quite well.
In the overall I did not do much at the black areas of the leopard at all.

When I was about to post it I have seen Ed & Rachel's comment, of course I gave it a try in Pano and like it that way much more. I had to take out the rock in the left, due to much disturbing / drawing attention to itself somehow. Well, my eyes have been pulled there to much. Burned the Highlights with 5% here and there.

Thanks so much Morkel, Ed and Rachel

Have a great eve, morning or afternoon :S3:

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Anette, with those techs you will have nailed it for sure. I agree with Morkel, the image does lack the clarity that I would have expected from the kit, ditto the blocking of the shadows. Perhaps take a look at Rachel's images with the same kit and I think you will see the areas you need to look at. If you are using ACR (PS/CS) then you can easily adjust areas that need to be addressed. Check for any updates to the Software too. The pano is better and I might look at selectively reducing some of the yellow too?

TFS
Steve