Private Investigator

[Andre Pretorius]

White Rhino Bull coming to investigate and to take a closer look at us.
Image captured in a Private Reserve somewhere in the World.

Was overcast, at least no shadows:bugeyed:

Some dark blacks (inside ears, some skin folds) with no detail, but I think to leave it the the way is was. Exposed on subject.

LR with basics and RAW sharpening, CS6 with luminosity masks, some actions, softened BG(no blur tool) and then some Andreas's tips on some of my previous posts.

Nikon D3S with 300 2,8
1/1250 @7,1
ISO 1800

PS tried to avoid halo's by blurring masks, is there a way to make it obvious during PP?
Oh, some gardening done in FG...

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Andre he is really checking you guys out !!
Very nice pose with good POV . Good job on the BG (whatever you have done )
I think it is a bit light on the HL areas and 1/4 tones . Plus you have some cyan creeping in in the BG .

For illustration a quick RP . Multiplied the blue channel into the red channel (masked with the red channel ) , slight curve masked with TK mid tone mask 3 . Mid tone point from 50 to 53. Reduced cyan in color.

WDYT ?

Cheeers your german brother

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Andre regarding your question halo and masking during PP , i think you mean you want to see if there are any ?
Add a levels adjustment layer and push the mid tone slider slowly to the right ,if there are an halos they will appear the darker the image becomes.

And do not forget by blurring the mask , you also create halos , depending on the pixel radius of the blur ( gaussian) . There are two ways that i know of to avoid this , one is masking the mask :bugeyed::2eyes2:. Hope you do not get confused . Other one is use median filter from the blur filter menu ( settings 10 - 15 px radius and 30 - 40 threshold ) .There is a third one ( smart blur , even better ), but works only with 8 bit depth .

Hope this helps , Andreas

[gail bisson]

I must be getting better at wildlife critiquing because when I opened the image I thought there was a cyan color in the BG but would never had said so as I am the new kid on this block.
But I see that Andreas also noticed it so I will echo his observations with more confidence!
Lovely "right at you" position and love the horn pointing perfectly straight up. Also like the ratty tatty left ear.
Lovely sighting and well imaged,
gail

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andre - Love the low pov and the coming at you pose. Dof looks great too. Andreas's rp has taken it up a notch. I think avoiding halos also depends on how you do your masks, if you paint them or if you use a selection tool. If the latter, feather the selection.

TFS,
Rachel

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Great sighting with the head-on pose, very nice DOF, sharpness and detail! Am sure it must have been a terrific close encounter!

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Andreas,Gail, Rachel and Sanjeev for comments!

Tried a RP with the suggestions

Andreas, when multiplying the blue channel into red, do you create a new alpha layer, then use that as mask...?What then happens to TK selection? The mid tone point, is that on the curve?
Please excuse my ignorance and stupidity...

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andre, lovely capture and I very much like the body posture & it's position, the head is spot on for me. I wondered if the space should be more on the RHS, but then this does have/convey the impression he walked in then turned. Andreas certainly took it up a notch and the image has a nice '3D' quality, nice one.

Certainly I'm not 100% on your workflow Andreas in achieving what you did, but it did work so great, however I personally would not use the Blue channel for anything, but that's me, LOL. :w3

TFS
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

So this goes to you Andre and Steve.
Andre i thought , well will he get it ? But no problem i will explain more detailed , for you and all who also not understand what is going on with my workflow . :w3

The reason for my edit is based on your OP , to me basically the lights are too bright with not enough density ( i know it is subjective and sometimes a matter of taste ) . There are numerous ways to alter that , i also use various methods to overcome that depending on image and other reasons. Sometimes i decide just what my guts are saying :t3.
All is working with luminosity masks , hardly any masks just painted with a paint brush .

This workflow is just simply called "channel blending " , you take one of the RGB channels and blend it into the RGB composite or into one of the channels (red, green, blue ) . The key is you use the blend modes to get the desired effect ( in this case multiply to darken the HL in the overall image )
Before i do that i analyze the channels ( i look for contrast and density ) .

Generally (not always ) the green channel is carrying the best contrast , the blue channel is normally the worst (cause of low contrast and carrying the noise ) , the red channel is somehow between the two .That is why Mr . Detail :w3 do not like the blue channel , right Steve ??!!. i agree .
But in this case low res file , no noise really visible it is ok to use the blue channel .

After inspecting the channels from OP , but even without inspection i could have told you , the red channel is really weak in the HL ( no density ) . The blue channel has the most density in the lights. So i take the density from the blue channel and copy it into the weak red channel ( with multiply blend mode ) . You need to multiply to get the desired effect .

In case you have plugged the shadows ( almost always the blue channels is your enemy and almost always the darkest and lowest contrast of the three RGB channels) just turn the whole thing around , just blend the red ( mostly the lightest of the three ) with the SCREEN blend mode into the blue channel . As easy as that :bg3:.
You can also blend the red channel twice into the blue ( just repeat the blending ) .

Here it is :

Background layer
duplicate BGL : cmd -j ( set to luminosity blend mode)
go to channels palette and click on the red channel

Go to menu :
Image
Apply image

Merged

Channel : blue

Blend mode : multiply

Klick : Ok

Now the blue channel is multiplied into the red channel , i just need it only in the HL , so a mask comes into play .

Add a layer mask to the duplicated BGL . Activate the mask by clicking on the mask

Now again go to Menu :

Image
Apply image

Background

Channel : Red

Blend mode : normal

Klick OK

If one like you blur the mask with Filter - blur - median ( 10 px / 30 threshold ) gives slightly more detail on the image.

Next go to TK panel and klick on Mid tone ( NR 3) to generate the mask .In the panel click on the curves button , this will add a curves adjustment layer with the mid tone mask in place onto your layer stack .
Now go to the curve graph and set a point right in the middle of the axis , now hit your down arrow key three times ( to add a bit more density to the mid tones ) . You can again blur the mask with the Median blur filter ( same settings )
Then set blend mode luminosity ( to avoid color shifts )
Last i added a sat layer to reduce the cyan in the BG .

That was it , including checking the channels , it take me 40 -60 sec (channel blending) . if you go too far with the darkening , just reduce the opacity of the duplicated BGL.

It is so easy .

Now to you Steve , why are you not 100 % ? I know we all work differently and have our preferences , and that is good . In the end the result is what counts . And i know this sounds complicated but it is not . You just need to know ( or read your image ) .

So i hope this helps specially you Andre , i think ( no i know ) Steve will know this stuff .

It was so hard to type this down , could have blended multiple channels together :bg3:.

Nice sunday evening to all of you , Cheers Andreas

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you, my German Hero!

I will take weeks to process this in my small mind, tried to print it so long, ran out of paper:eek3::t3

Thank you for sharing, brother- will learn and apply.

Nite, have to go to bed now...

[Steve Kaluski]

I guess Andreas, it may have got lost in translation, so this is perfect. Good to see you know about your Channels and what to avoid, but this is why I get people to choose the channels and then ask the reasons why, in that way they learn and can see the + & - in choosing the selection.
Yep, just different steps and I cut out a lot too, as I say, a lot of my PP is kept very simple, however I for one know just how hard it is to type this, especially when English is not your first language, so cheers Andreas. :cheers: The trick is to know what you need to do, how to achieve the result, and untimately why, so to avoid a bad result as often things are copied, applied and then things do not look right. :w3

[Andreas Liedmann]

Steve i thought you know that i work with channels and/ or channel blending if needed . I suggested it to others in some cases as a solution or option to overcome some problems like too light HL or too dark shadows.

Andre just try to understand the idea behind it and use it if necessary , but Steve is well right by saying , you need to know your channels and what they are good or bad for . Makes it easier to get better results .Not saying that i achieve all the time very good results :bg3:.

A nice sunday evening and a good start in the new week

Cheers Andreas

[edwardselfe]

Wow - nice head-on angle and good processing. Blue removed from bg helps and rest is spot on.
I also don't follow Andreas's post, but there are many ways of achieving a similar thing in PS!!
Ed

[Andreas Liedmann]

I also don't follow Andreas's post, but there are many ways of achieving a similar thing in PS!!
Ed
What does this mean Ed ?

[edwardselfe]

Hi Andreas -

Nothing meant by it really. Just that your method of intersecting layers was a bit beyond me, though not for lack of explanation on your part! I will follow the steps on an image and see if I can learn from it.

Thanks,

Ed

[Andreas Liedmann]

Ok Ed thanks for your explanation , and you are right about that it can be achieved within PS in many ways , as i said myself in Pane 9 :S3:.

Thanks Andreas

[Carl Walker]

Sorry I am late getting. Happens a lot lately here. Like what is happening here - a learning post - Great image Andre and with some great improvements in your RP. My shots of this guy include road so well done in getting this :cheers: