Baboon

[Glenn Pure]

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I liked the 'knowing' look on the face of this baboon and the light glancing through one eye. Shadows lightened around the baboon's eye area. Shot is from Chobe National Park, Botswana. Crop is about half of the frame area. Thank you for viewing and any comments you may wish to provide.

Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/1250, f7.1, ISO 800. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements with Neat Image NR plugin. No NR applied in this shot. Lighting adjustments, crop and resize. Sharpened (sharpness, radius = 0.4 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - a nice portrait of the contemplative baboon. The light hitting the eye is very nice. I would like to see it without the shadows lightened as they seem unnaturally light to me or maybe don't go as far with the lightening. Watch the hls some are hot. I also would come in on the crop from the left and bottom a little if you can do so without affecting IQ as from your intro this is already a large crop.

TFS,
Rachel

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Glenn,

Thank you for this, Chachma Baboons are among my favourite subjects and I love to photograph them too:) So much expression in those eyes. I find Baboon behaviour truly fascinating, and especially the hierarchy between adult females and their young. Interesting that the offspring inherit the rank of their mother...

Oops, I am getting carried away here and slightly off topic, so let me get back to your frame...I guess if I had my way I would end up (again!) with a square crop...To my mind there's just too much space behind the subject's head and I really wish to draw more attention to those lovely eyes. For this reason I would try place the face more in the centre of the image by cropping from the LHS. I would also reduce brightness where the HL are a little pronounced.

I think you've done a great job here with exposure, nice techs and there's good detail everywhere. I think I see a tiny blue cast under the eyes, I would remove it. Unfamiliar with Canon DPP4 but I am certain you could improve tonality further. Overall a pleasing image with great emotional appeal - nice work!

You make me look for a Baboon in my own folders now, Glenn:bg3:

Looking forward to your next image...

Have a lovely evening,

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you Rachel and Gabriela for your helpful and thoughtful comments. I like your stories about African wildlife Gabriela, so please keep them coming. We asked our guide in Botswana what his favourite animal was. He said baboon without hesitation because of their fascinating behaviour.

I have redone the crop, trying to fit with what you both suggested (while being comfortable myself). I think a tighter crop does work better. Plenty of sharpness here so no problem cropping harder. I've also done more adjustments to the lighting, reduced the shadow lifting around the eyes and tried to fix the cast there. Also made the final output sharpening a tad finer (0.3 pixels instead of 0.4) as this was making some of the light fur look a bit frazzled. Also pulled back highlights as well. Hope this is better.
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[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Glenn, a nice shot of the baboon. Love the illuminated eye with good details and sharpness.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Glenn -- This is very nicely done , i loved the sharpness and the tight close up of the subject . agree with the above especially regarding the hls , your RP is certainly an improvement.

TFS !

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Glenn - The rp is in the right direction. If it were mine I would tame the hls a bit more.

Cheers,
Rachel

[Marc Mol]

Very nice portrait here Glenn, although it appears to me your RP is now a liitle too sharp with the subsequent increase in H/L.

I can't say I share both your guide & Gabriela's love of baboons. To me they share too many human traits and have seen them do some really nasty and conniving things. :Whoa!:

[Glenn Pure]

Thank you all for your comments. I will revisit this again based on your suggestions but probably won't repost.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, I prefer the crop in the RP, but agree with Marc that it's just too sharp now, however I think some of the issues are stemming from quite a hefty crop which is less than ideal. The eyes in the RP also appear too 'glowing'!!! I like the slight head turn.

TFS
Steve

[Glenn Pure]

Hi Glenn, I prefer the crop in the RP, but agree with Marc that it's just too sharp now, however I think some of the issues are stemming from quite a hefty crop which is less than ideal. The eyes in the RP also appear too 'glowing'!!! I like the slight head turn.

TFS
Steve
Thanks Steve. So I know what to look out for, why do you say it looks too sharp? Original image was tack sharp and the fur quite contrasty. I've applied less output sharpening than I normally would for the RP and input sharpening was as shown in the OP - same as I'd normally use. Perhaps I need to flatten the tones a bit more to reduce the naturally contrasty look of the fur? Regarding the eyes, the only adjustment there was a general one to reduce shadows around the shadowed part of the face but I did this quite modestly on the repost. Maybe you are refering more to the eye on the left of the frame with the direct light refracting through it? Any clarification welcome so I can revisit as necessary.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Glenn, you really want to avoid heavy crops, it just kills the IQ and so you may wish to think about purchasing a 1.4 convertor if you haven't already to give you that extra reach.

Firstly I would suggest you go to 0.3 not 0.4 on the radius, also as images vary in their 'sharpness' in the original capture, you may find that you have to change the amounts of sharpening applied, plus I think because of the bright light and HL's this could be why I think in parts it looks over sharp, as I'm sure you know how sharpening works based on previous discussions we have had :S3: Now, you could find that in the PP of the face more could be done prior to any sharpening and so this may also help i.e. in brighter areas? Glenn I wouldn't get too hung up as overall I like the image, but I am, like others having to second guess in part without seeing the RAW. If I did perhaps I might tackle the PP in a different ways i.e. addressing the brighter parts, using Curves to bring more detail, texture and tone out, which does work even in the RP. If you wish to forward the raw I will gladly take a look if you think this would help, however using LR compared to DPP we may find it less than helpful, however happy to try albeit that I will in part have very little time.


Regarding the eyes, the only adjustment there was a general one to reduce shadows around the shadowed part of the face but I did this quite modestly on the repost.

There is a shift in colour between the two, personally I would go with the OP, but if you used a mask then perhaps the eyes were included, easily done.

[Glenn Pure]

Thanks for that additional detail Steve. Here's a repost with a more drastic reduction of highlights and selective darkening of the bright patches of fur. Crop slightly different but that was just me not saving the crop I used in the first RP.
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Hi Glenn, you really want to avoid heavy crops, it just kills the IQ and so you may wish to think about purchasing a 1.4 convertor if you haven't already to give you that extra reach.
I've commented on use of teleconverter with my lens in the more recent Leopard post - please see for details. I thought the detail and sharpness of the original frame was quite good and the crop I used didn't show up any IQ issues? Here's a 1:1 crop (DLO applied and 'input' sharpeness of '2' in DPP - this is quite modest. I normally use '3').
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Firstly I would suggest you go to 0.3 not 0.4 on the radius, also as images vary in their 'sharpness' in the original capture, you may find that you have to change the amounts of sharpening applied, plus I think because of the bright light and HL's this could be why I think in parts it looks over sharp, as I'm sure you know how sharpening works based on previous discussions we have had :S3: Now, you could find that in the PP of the face more could be done prior to any sharpening and so this may also help i.e. in brighter areas?
The first repost was done at 0.3 pixels and 50% sharpness (OP was 0.4 pixels). The second repost I lowered this again to 0.2 pixels and 50%. As mentioned, I have also further lowered highlights globally and selectively in the second repost to try and deal with this. Hope it is better.


Glenn I wouldn't get too hung up as overall I like the image, but I am, like others having to second guess in part without seeing the RAW. If I did perhaps I might tackle the PP in a different ways i.e. addressing the brighter parts, using Curves to bring more detail, texture and tone out, which does work even in the RP. If you wish to forward the raw I will gladly take a look if you think this would help, however using LR compared to DPP we may find it less than helpful, however happy to try albeit that I will in part have very little time.
No problems - just trying to get to the bottom of what is happening here. Sorry to labour it. Thanks also for your offer to look at the RAW. Given that I've posted a 1:1 crop above, I won't take you up on your kind offer this time (anyway, you sound very busy)... but maybe another time if I haven't worn out my welcome!



There is a shift in colour between the two, personally I would go with the OP, but if you used a mask then perhaps the eyes were included, easily done.
Colour untouched between the two versions (not intentionally anyway) except around eyes as per Gabriela's suggestion. Maybe the reduced highlights in the second version has brought out more colour in the highlights and resulted in a perceived change?

Thanks again for your time and effort.