Leopard in failing light

[edwardselfe]

I took this shot of a yearling leopard cub in the last light of evening. I know that light is everything and it's impossible to recreate good light, but I've really struggled with this image. I was using a fixed 500mm lens so couldn't leave any more space around (if I could have done, I would have framed and shot with a b&w strong composition option in mind) and she didn't stay there long before hopping down and going hunting.

Any suggestions on how to balance colours better would be very welcome.

Canon 1D4, 500mm f4, f5.6, ISO 3200, 1/160s

[Brendon Cremer]

Lovely image Edward, great pose, detail looks good and a very nice oof bg adds nicely. Colours look goos to me i dont see to many issues there, only the image as a whole looks a little dull, it may be worth while to just increase the Right hand slider using Levels perhaps to brighten it up a little.

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Edward,

open a saturation layer mask and pull the blue slider back to -50 -60% and than apply Brendon's right slider in Levels. Gives you a totally different fresh look. Check it out. With the blue slider you have managed a bit the color balance as well!
RP, I pulled the Levels right slider quite a bit inside, that you see. The blue to -63 in the Saturation layer mask!

Very nice pose of the leopard. :bg3:

Ciao
Anette

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Ed, I'm away again, so viewing on the laptop, so not ideal. Will look later, but do you use LR?

Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Edward,
like the shot with the regal pose of the subject and the OOF BG.
I am with Brendon image looks a bit flat , i think in the mid tones . Would suggest to push them slightly , and reduce the blues in the highlights , not all because of the time when you took the image.
Think Anette pushed it too light in tones and lost a bit of the depth.

Great detail.Really like this one.

TFS Andreas

[Morkel Erasmus]

Nice pose - agree with others that it could use a bit of a "lift" in exposure/midtones.
Since you said you wanted to go for B&W...how about this? :e3
Not optimal - would need to work from the RAW file for better toning and filtering of specific colours

[edwardselfe]

Thank you all for your feedback.

Dropping the blues makes a massive difference and now that I look at the image, I can see the blue cast. Very interesting that it's hard to see such a problem in your own images. Will look for it in the future. Increasing the mid-tones also works well and I like the B&W conversion that Morkel's done. B&W is always a good option when the colour isn't good, but I wanted to see if I could fix the colour in this one before reverting to the B&W option. Even so, I could have a B&W version and a colour version of the same photo so I appreciate the input on that.

Thanks all.

Ed

[Girish Prahalad]

lovely pose you have got here with superb eye contact. comp & details are excellent.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Edward - nice pose and creamy bg. You've already gotten very good suggestions to amp up the midtones a bit and to deal with the blue cast. Definitely worth it to tweak this one.

TFS,
Rachel

[Egil Droge]

Hi Ed,

Can't add much to what has said before. The background is lovely, the subject perfectly sharp, with a little extra punch it's just a really good image!

[edwardselfe]

Thanks Egil Rachel and Girish. Useful comments. Egil, look forward to see some of yours! Ed

[edwardselfe]

Thanks Egil Rachel and Girish. Useful comments. Egil, look forward to see some of yours! Ed

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Ed,

Congrats for catching a leopard cub in a nice setting. Dropping the blue makes a huge difference. I like Anette's RP very much. I am too struggling with seeing color cast in my own images, but it is so obvious when someone else shows me an example!

Well done.

Loi