Rocky

[Gen Benjamin]

Was at our local park and came across this relatively cooperative Racoon.
Nikon D3
300 2.8 w/1.4x
ISO 1250
1/2000 at f 4
Handheld
Forgot to mention cloned out a stick in left foreground

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gen, nice placement in frame, overall colours, pose and head to camera, perfect timing.

In the hope of trying to spur some dialog & replies/feedback I have a couple of observations which would be interesting to know the thoughts of others and hopefully may give Gen a better response:

- Do people feel that the techs look right or is there anything that you may suggest in changing?
- Does the BKG look right as it was shot at f/4, is it too smooth, should have a bit more detail albeit quite OOF?
- POV, looks good, or even lower?
- Any Post production (PP) thoughts to improve the image?
- Does anyone else have any points, or questions in critiquing this image?

Just trying to take a different tac in encouraging people to comment & critique so the poster gets more varied feedback and that people can build on the critquing, I hope this works, or at least is a starting point.

Gen I will come back in due course with my thoughts.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gen - Nice view of what looks like a youngster. Btw I would be concerned with encountering a L.I. raccoon in daylight (lots of documented cases of rabies in the L.I. population). As for the image - great eye contact and low pov. I thought it looked a little bright overall and ran a luminosity mask at 40% and also dropped the reds by -15. Finally, I burned the brighter areas of the muzzle by 6%. You can probably extract more detail there on the RAW file, similarly you might be able to bring out a bit more detail in the mask area too. WDYT?

TFS,
Rachel

[Gen Benjamin]

Hi Rachael it does look nicer toned down, I'm going top rework it with your suggestions and see how it looks. This little guy did not appear rabid or ill in any way other than a lame back foot, totally uninterested or bothered by me at all but of course always error on the side of caution
Thanks
Gen

[dankearl]

A nice Raccoon photo.
It seems a bit warm and too brown, but that could be a regional difference, they are gray or black where I live.
The PP looks fine to me, maybe a bit over sharpened but fine as presented.
I like to look at raccoons, I don't like to interact with them!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gen, OK now I'm back so I can look at it in a bit more depth.

As I said earlier, I like the pose and position in frame, I think you could go lower, but just personal taste, looks good as presented. With the SS you had I think more DOF would have been better and given you more scope. Not sure where the focus point was, but to me it wasn't in the area of the head as the eyes aren't sharp. The FG grass in front and around the tail looks sharp, likewise the chest body, and I guessing, but perhaps the FP was on the nose? If the body looks sharp then the jutting legs by the tip of the tail should be also sharp IMHO. I do like the diffused BKG as it separates the subject and the soft muted colour tones. I would suggest looking at a Luminosity layer just to help soften the brighter creams & whites and try to get a bit more detail/tone on the RHS by the nose. It also adds a bit more depth/tone to the surrounding FG grass which I think helps in giving a bit more of a platform for the subject to sit on. Applying a Curves adjustment also just gives a bit more depth to the body fur, but avoid applying around the dark face markings, you don't want to clog those, in fact I might look at just opening them up just a fraction. If you ran any NR on the BKG then I think you need to apply some to the foot of the image too, just about half an inch from the trim.

I think overall this just needs some subtle tweaks to take it to the next stage, this is not it by any shape or form, but hope it illustrates some of the points I made above.

TFS
Steve

[Morkel Erasmus]

Lovely pose and exposure here Gen. Your initial repost is an improvement, and Steve's repost takes it to another level IMHO.
I do think you could tone down the warmth somewhat?