Spotted Deer

[Nancy Bell]

Photographed in one of the tiger reserves in India. This deer, a favorite food of the tiger, was grazing just a moment earlier. We watched it lift it's head and haltingly walk towards some suspicious sound, possibly a tiger. This pose makes me think of a hunting dog pointing birds! Photographed from the safari vehicle.

I adjusted the white balance from cloudy to daylight. Also reduced the yellows. Once in PS I did a bit of gardening with the content aware tool.

As mentioned in another post, post-processing is an individual evolution and I very much appreciate all the evolutionary advice that is offered!

Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon 400 DO f4 IS, Canon 1.4 teleconverter, 1/800, f8, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 400.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, yes they are always on the lookout and their hearing is very acute, just in case of that surprise attack as Tigers tend to be more an ambush hunter than anything else.

Certainly you have the clarity, detail and sharpness in the subject, but I feel you need to separate the subject more as tonally/colourwise everything is all a bit samey, as it all blends into each other. I think the subject looks quite good in colour and I like the more yellow in the coat, but it's this saturation of Red & Yellow I feel may need to be tamed in the habitat? Obviously not knowing the light conditions I can only assume. Perhaps try Auto WB, then adjust minimally try the other sliders, plus try the HSL slider to. If you have it I might go for more above too.

This is certainly not ideal, but hopefully may illustrate my point about trying to get more separation between subject & environment and having the RAW you can make a better job than I have.

Great to see how you are progressing and you have a very good understanding that this is all about developing and evolving.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nancy - great pose. Looks like the techs were spot on. Once again, Steve's suggestions and repost take it up a notch.

TFS,
Rachel

[Nancy Bell]

Steve, are you suggesting processing the RAW image twice in ACR? Once for the animal and once for the bkgd? I worried that the colors of the bkgd and the deer were so much the same. I tried to address it in color/saturation and a mask. But could not get just what I wanted.

[Steve Kaluski]

Yep, just replied to your PM. Am having to second guess and make assumptions based on the OP. :S3:

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice pose of an antelope I always considered to be very pretty.
Steve's done some good work in getting it separated more from the BG.

Double-processing is a handy tool to have in your kit. Render the same image twice using different settings each time, and layer/blend them together. I often use it in B&W conversions to get a slightly different tonality on my subject compared to the BG.