A Golden Oldie From 2015...

[Joseph Przybyla]

I captured this image of a Great Blue Heron at Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County, Florida. Because of the background and the birds worn feathers (he looks like he had a tough day) I processed it to look grungy. Comments and critique welcomed and appreciated. Thank you for sharing.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 80-400mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF-S ED, image captured at 400mm
1/1250 F/5.6 Matrix Metering EV -2/3 ISO 720 Auto WB, camera supported by a monopod
Post processed in Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC 2020 and Neat Image for noise reduction
Cropped for composition and presentation

P.S. Learn more about Circle B Bar Reserve in the BAA Middle Florida Photography Site Guide that Artie and I co-authored. It is available at this link The BAA Middle of Florida Site Guide (https://birdsasart-shop.com/the-baa-middle-of-florida-photographic-site-guide/)

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Joe, a striking image with the black backdrop. If you reduce some contrast and again the Blue, you will find there is more within the capture. If you ever decide to print this, just watch the black in the BKG, albeit, as there is no detail you should be OK.

TFS
Steve

[kevin Hice]

Joe I always like black background just seems to make the subject pop as this. Lots of detail here. He definitely has that grungy or worked over look.Really like the lighting on this. TFS

[John Mack]

The lighting here is great. Love that dark background. Yes to some crunch going on.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the bird and the background. Not exactly sure what grungy means but I guess means saturated and contrasted and heavy?? I think you could have achieved this effect and yet retain better detail, e.g. double process the raw, render the background black. The bird : you could lift the blacks and reduce the highlights and still have good contrast. I too see a blue cast on the grey feathers and the bill which could be easily fixed at raw conversion. I reckon you have striking image but I feel it could be made better and still retain some "grunge".

[David Roach]

Grungy and menacing at the same time. That strong side light and fall off adds to the effect. I have a stupid question for others, what does double processing mean. TFS

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Joe, a striking image with the black backdrop. If you reduce some contrast and again the Blue, you will find there is more within the capture. If you ever decide to print this, just watch the black in the BKG, albeit, as there is no detail you should be OK.

TFS
Steve

Hey Steve, thank you for viewing and commenting offering suggestions. I went back to the image and reduced the blue saturation which helped the whites in the shadows. I also reduced the contrast by -10. WDYT?

Hey Jon, grungy is pretty much the opposite of high key, dark background,, underexposed, sort of a menacing look.

Hey David, double processing is normally used in Photoshop where you open a image in Photoshop, convert it to a layer and thena smart object and duplicate the layer. The first layer would be exposed for the shadows and the duplicate layer would be exposed for the highlights. I do similar in Lightroom using a Luminance mask and the Adjustment Brush isolating the shadows by painting over them and using the slider to limit what I work on and the on a new Adjudtment brush setting painting over the highlights and using a Luminance mask and the Adjustment Brush to limit the highlights I want to work on.

Here is a repost with Steve's suggestions.

[David Roach]

Hey Steve, thank you for viewing and commenting offering suggestions. I went back to the image and reduced the blue saturation which helped the whites in the shadows. I also reduced the contrast by -10. WDYT?

Hey Jon, grungy is pretty much the opposite of high key, dark background,, underexposed, sort of a menacing look.

Hey David, double processing is normally used in Photoshop where you open a image in Photoshop, convert it to a layer and thena smart object and duplicate the layer. The first layer would be exposed for the shadows and the duplicate layer would be exposed for the highlights. I do similar in Lightroom using a Luminance mask and the Adjustment Brush isolating the shadows by painting over them and using the slider to limit what I work on and the on a new Adjudtment brush setting painting over the highlights and using a Luminance mask and the Adjustment Brush to limit the highlights I want to work on.

Here is a repost with Steve's suggestions.

Repost looks great, but I like them both for different reasons. The OP looks more foreboding... Thanks for the answer, my friend and TFS.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks everyone for viewing and commenting, very much appreciated.