Rehab Burrowing Owl

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Sorry still no exif, new computer but old hard drive has not been transferred yet. I'm still messing with learning the new puter and programs, so this is not well edited.

not sure if I should clone the light out of his one eye??

this is a captive rehab bird, he has a severely deformed foot from a trauma. Photographed at an event here where I believe this guy is with Hawks Aloft.

BG turned grainy when I was trying to edit other things.

handheld
no flash,
macro mode

interested to hear your thoughts, I love this photo but know it needs some treatment.

[Jim Crosswell]

Hi Linz,

Here is an alternate crop. I found the original to have too much of the OOF body. The whites above the eyes are blown and I couldn't get any detail out of that area. I warmed the image up a bit and bumped up the saturation. Sharpened the owl only and ran NR on the BG. As for the eye I down played the reflection because it looks like some man made structures or objects. Hope you like it.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Thanks Jim..... Funny I was so focused on his eye and feathers underneath I didn't even notice the blown whites above. Thank you. Hopefully when I get to my originals with decent editing maybe a bit of info will be there.

I got a few of this guy but this one with the attitude was so cute.


Thanks on the BG I'm reading how to do layers so I can keep it separated.

[Steve Kaluski]

Linz, there are many issues with this image, however without EXIF it's hard to give a full blown critique, however.

Judging by the whites you have blown them, with little detail, tone & depth. I am sure your camera has Highlights alert, activate it and look at the histogram, only use the LCD for composition.
The image is not sharp, this is probably down to camera settings rather than applying sharpening within Post Production
Noise is apparent within the BKG, I assume with no flash you were using a high ISO, use Noise reduction software to deal with this but work in layers not original.
Avoid cropping hard, ie large crops, this will ensure greater image quality
If you photograph these animals put the focus point on the eye and have plenty of DOF ie f/9 min. I have been photographing these for the last 3 months and rarely do I go to f/5.6, I try to retain a greater DOF. In this instance the FP should have been on the left eye as viewed.

Linz the colour is probably off as I took a mid grey point to get a starting point for the WB. Added some exposure, mid tone, NR to the BKG and appled some sharpening. This was take direct from your OP.

Hope this helps.

Steve

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Hooray for fix it fathers, old computer still gone but he handed off the hard drive contents to me.

So I found my original image and I'm working on a repost.

until then here is the exif data that was missing......

EXIF Data


Camera: Sony Cybershot DSC HX 100/V


Exposure: 1/250 at f/5.6


Focal: 144mm


Mode: advanced macro, no flash, handheld


Editing: crop, contrast

[John Chardine]

Hope the original was raw, then you have half a chance at toning down the whites.

I would do nothing to the eye as the highlight gives the eye some life. Frankly it matters little what is being reflected from it.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Cool composition, Really like the Owl's posture.... OP looks overcropped so maybe have lost some detail from that? But, since it looks like you were in Macro Mode, if at close range, very little of a bird would be totally in focus. Jim's repost looks better... Steve's looks a bit green on my monitor.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Okey dokey, here we go.

The original is not in RAW..... none of my cameras shoot in RAW, big draw back of my advanced Sony and point and shoot Nikon.

However the Ipad made the editing bad, really bad. The original file was pretty good in the whites, not completely gone.

So here is a repost, cropped a little differently.

Working on new computer, in LR which I'm learning and with Topaz Adjust Trial

I cropped less just some off the top and tiny bit on left side, this is almost full frame.

exposure fix, highlight recovery in topaz adjust, mild contrast pop. In LR smoothed background, added slight darken gradient to bottom feathers.

Let me know what you think.

[Grace Scalzo]

I'm totally confused. I've seen burrowing owls in FL and ones in CA and they all look brown, not reddish orange like this image looks. I see a lot of contrast and edginess to the sharpening.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

Hi Grace,

I admit the edge looks pretty ragged, have not gotten close to good enough in LR on masking or keeping edges clean. So it got muddied when I darkened and smoothed the BG.

As for the color, I will check my monitor calibration again, but have checked it according to the gray scale on the pages here and also done a calibration through PS elements 11, all looks good.

This owl might be slightly different colored than a wild one, not sure..... he's been captive for a long time as he has a very deformed leg and foot/claws. Trying to remember his whole story.

Maybe captivity changes color from diet..... thinking in equine terms here, as wild horses are always sun bleached versus show horses that receive food to optimize color.

Was also photographing under a tent with the dark background.

I may have pulled up the highlights too much trying to recover the whites which could have made his color lighter.... again not sure

I've never seen any owl in the wild, heard them, looked for them, but the hunt is still on. So I'm not any help on the color.

Sorry for any confusion. Will be going to the Festival again in November, will see if this owl is present and take some new pictures with the newer camera.

[dankearl]

Looking at your photo's, you are way overthinking and overdoing this.
A captive Owl and a P & S, you should not be doing much PP at all.
You need to just work on basic exposure in camera. Just press, hold, expose, shoot.
Add a tiny bit of color maybe and a tad of sharpening. Basic I-photo kind of stuff.

[LinzRiverBalmer]

I'm sorry Dan I'm not familiar with IPhoto, I will look into it.

My camera is not a basic P&S its an advanced bridge camera so I have most of what a DSLR offers.

My repost was tweaked based on the suggestions on my original photo which was edited first on an I pad as I was going through a computer switch over.

The Ipad destroyed a lot of my photos so I've been going back to the originals on my hard drive and re editing. Just starting out in LR and PS Elements, so learning the ropes.

The repost I did what I normally do, sharpen, contrast, levels, exposure adjust. This time I added highlight recovery as it was mentioned that my whites were blown.