Great Egret for Oregon

[Kim Rollins]

I was happy with this one in spite of no eye contact, head angle , etc.

http://upload.pbase.com/kwr_01/image/101527504/original.jpg

OLY E-3 No Flash Focal Length 708 mm 1/1250 sec f/8.9 ISO 400
Metering Mode center weighted (2) Exposure Program manual (1)
Shot about 10 AM and if I recall correctly with overcast sky.

[Dave Phillips]

Like the pose in general....maybe a bit more side of head showing eye would be preferrable.
Egret seems a bit underexposed/gray to me....and a bit too centered in frame..
Beautiful bg coloration

not trying to be harsh, just critiquing what I see

[Kim Rollins]

Like the pose in general....maybe a bit more side of head showing eye would be preferrable.
Egret seems a bit underexposed/gray to me....and a bit too centered in frame..
Beautiful bg coloration

not trying to be harsh, just critiquing what I see

Dave -

Thank you and I will take a look at exposure on egret.

Even harsh is OK with me but brutal critique is what I learn from.

[Dave Phillips]

and Kim, you have posted in Adobe RGB colorspace.... best to "convert to" sRGB for web.
Many with non color managed browsers will not see the colors you expect

[Gary Dumer]

Boy you nailed the Exposure on this Bird but the lack of Eye Contact is a negative!

[John Blumenkamp]

Cool behavior you've captured here Kim... the exposure on the whites look great on my screen. Hope to see more.

[Dave Phillips]

I guess I'm missing something......see some white highlights, but otherwise a very gray bird

[Kim Rollins]

and Kim, you have posted in Adobe RGB colorspace.... best to "convert to" sRGB for web.
Many with no color managed browsers will not see the colors you expect


Thanks Dave.

I don't know how I got that one in the gallery without the profile change. I think it is now corrected there and I look at the next one in gallery and they are sRGB.

By the way I looked a bit at exposure on bird after you first message. I played with several things and ... not much success without causing some changes I considered detrimental to quality (worse then the gray), hot spot on neck jumps out as well as wierd things at beak and even with mask I just was not satified with what I was getting. I may go back to the original file and take a look but for the time being I think I will just be happy with the gray.

Thank you again for your help.

[Randy Stout]

Kim:

I am getting the same grey bird as Dave. The overall impression is that the bird is underexposed by a 1/2 to 3/4, even though there is the hot spot. Looks like snow where the meter tries to make it a grey!

Randy

[Kim Rollins]

Kim:

I am getting the same grey bird as Dave. The overall impression is that the bird is underexposed by a 1/2 to 3/4, even though there is the hot spot. Looks like snow where the meter tries to make it a grey!

Randy

Dave and Randy,

Don't get me wrong here. I too see the gray but... :confused: I do not know what I would do about it if I decided I did not want it there. I was certainly open to removing it to take a "look see" but failed in my attempts. Everything I have tried to do to cut the gray has degraded the image greatly IMO. I even got one version that had white but I would not even care to show it as IMO it was bad.

I consider myself to have some good PP skills but to get the gray out of this one without trashing it in other ways has got me stumped. I have tried everything I can think of and in RGB, LAB and CMYK modes. I have tried working with individual colors, I have selected, masked, Curved, used Levels and Exposure adjustments, etc.etc. etc... I even took your comment about snow and tried tricks that I know work to make gray looking snow white. None of this worked to my satisfaction on this image.

Though I do like it as is I certainly was open to your critique and would have liked to consider it without the gray but... it does not seem that is to happen. I do remember it was cloudy that day, sun was up but not high and as it was behind clouds no sun was hitting the bird. Usually when I see a color cast it is some other color then gray and as the photographer I then have to decide if the color cast is good for the image or should I correct it and then proceed. On this one and after my attempts at removing the gray I have come to the conclusion that 'gray is good this time'. :eek: I am sitting here chuckling to myself a bit because this is a first for me but in all honesty I can not seem to do a thing about the gray.

So be it, gray. ;)

Thank you both for your comments.

[Stu Bowie]

Lovely behavioural image Kim. This is nice and sharp, and I see a small hot spot at the base of the neck. Still, well timed to capture the scratch.

[Kim Rollins]

Lovely behavioural image Kim. This is nice and sharp, and I see a small hot spot at the base of the neck. Still, well timed to capture the scratch.

Thanks for dropping by and commenting too Stuart.

I hope you got and understood my email about pp 2 Part Sharpening OK. I sent it this day. :)

[Art Kornienko]

Although nice and sharp, the subject behaviour and placement (centered) doesn't work for me.

[Kim Rollins]

Although nice and sharp, the subject behaviour and placement (centered) doesn't work for me.

Art,
Thanks for dropping by and for the comment.