Pika

[Nancy Bell]

I photographed this at Mt. Evans in Colorado, famous for its Mt. Goats. As Steve K. suggested for my Mule Deer image, I processed this image using more of the control provided by the Adobe Raw Converter than I have in the past. I think this has added more depth and texture to the fur, hopefully achieving a more real image. Pikas only live in rocks and thus rocks are in the foreground and bkgd. I would love to have its tiny feet visible but I think the feet were mostly under the body, as well as behind the rock.

Comments and critiques most appreciated.

Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 300 f4 L IS, 1/640, f6.3, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 400.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nancy - to me the pp on this image looks better. Nice detail and sharpening looks good. I do wish the impact of the oof pink rock in the fg could be lessened but I'm not sure if it is possible. I think the pika is very slightly angled away from you. Overall, well done.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, it's good that you are trying to do more in the RAW conversion, the image will be a lot better and you have more control. Just be careful with the 'Clarity' slider you really only want it between 1-10 as L$4 is far better than the previous edition. If you use too much the image will look crunchy. If you get to know LR or ACR then you will need less in PS, although there are things you may still need to do in PS.

I do think the image is better and you seem to have more control overall. I like the scene, position of the subject and the light blue works nicely to separate the subject, but the large OOF rock on the LHS really dominates the image for me. I don't think moving or going higher would have achieved any better result sadly. Just looking at the fur, did you lighten or lift the shadows at all? They are cute little characters and I love the satellite ears.

TFS
Steve

[Jim Thomas]

lovely light and clarity. I love profiles and all the wiskers. I wonder if you could clone some of the other rock over the pink one, then blur it?

Jim

[Nancy Bell]

If I had really thought ahead, I would have photographed more of the dark granite rock so I would have something to bring in over the pink rock. The bkgd rock was more prominent in the original and I did blur it and brought some of the sky down and feathered it over the top part. Is there some PS technique that would allow me to change the pink but not the texture?

Steve, I only have ACR, not Lightroom. On the fur, I reduced some redness, which probably caused other changes.

[Steve Kaluski]

Nancy, ACR works in the same way really as LR, but I doubt that dropping the red would have that effect, however how about something like this. Done on the laptop as I away shooting, but let me know what you think.

[Nancy Bell]

I searched more of my files from that area and did find a rock to move over the pink one. How does this work?

Steve, you posted your rock make-over just moments before mine. You desaturated the rock? It looks so much better than it did.

[Steve Kaluski]

Why desaturate, have you tried it, what effect does it have? :S3:

[Nancy Bell]

Now that I see this posted I think I was so focused on adding the rock I forgot to sharpen for the web :e3.

[Nancy Bell]

Steve, I'm lost somewhere. What did you do to the rock? I thought it looked like you had desaturated it, but obviously not.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, why I asked was because there may have been a very good reason why you asked if I used Desaturation and I'm always open to new thoughts. :S3:

My understanding is that it takes colour out, perhaps to the point of almost B/W, that to me would jar with the rest of the image, therefore what else can we do? My thought was yes, take the colour out so it was less 'bold', so all I did was drop the overall saturation around 50% then masked. The figure is personal taste, not a fixed one. :w3

[Nancy Bell]

Steve, I get it. I used "desaturate" as a verb, meaning exactly what you did; "so all I did was drop the overall saturation around 50% then masked." I did not mean it as a tab/specific function in PS, which indeed would have made it B/W. Oops...

[Steve Kaluski]

That's fine, not trying to be semantic here, just curious incase I missed something. Hope it helped/worked. :S3:

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Nancy, love your little chap and followed up all comments :bg3:
Very well done, no desaturate or not, I like Steve's version and yours with the new rock in it. But than the new rock has different blacks...etc. than the one the little chap is sitting on!
But I do like this little chap, sharpening and all, even without sharpening in RP :bg3:

Ciao
Anette

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Its such a shame that big pink rock was in the way:w3 I really hate when that happens. Steve;s repost has definitely calmed it down and your repost is great too. I think it worked for you. You have great detail on the OP and I'm right there with you on improving my PP. It's work for sure

[Morkel Erasmus]

Late to this one, Nancy. My initial thought was to crop tighter. In your last RP you cropped a bit too tight for me as I might have left a sliver of the OOF rock still in there for context.
The overall PP (depth, clarity, quality) looks much better here. It's always great seeing people step out of their comfort zones and improve their photography or processing in the process. :5

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you everyone for all your help!! I really, really appreciate it.
Morkel, I see your thinking on cropping, somewhere in between the two.