Larger Lion 2

[Ken Watkins]

Here a little late is the majestic Male Lion, the last in the sequence before I filled up my card.

Taken on Ngweshla Plains, Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, 1st July 2010

EOS 1D MkIV

500mm F4 IS hand-held from vehicle

F7.1, ISO 400, 1/1000

[Harshad Barve]

Ken , you are simply killing me with your Zimbabwe images , He is big stud for sure and excellent image too TFS

[Morkel Erasmus]

Ken - forgive me for toying with this image, but I felt it was just too good a shot of too good a specimen to leave it as "bland" as it appears on my screen - the colours are a bit flat and it lacks punch overall IMHO.

I did a quick round of S/H (20,20,10), then a round of USM (20,10) for LCE, some NR on the BG and a selective brightness layer on the lion to lift brightness by about 6 points - that being said the screen I'm working on is usually a little darker than my calibrated monitor at home.

What do you think?

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

I agree it looks a little dark and flat and I am viewing in Firefox your repost looks way over the top, I think I will re-calibrate my monitor and get back to you.

Cheers

Ken

[Morkel Erasmus]

your repost looks way over the top

Ken, please explain? I did not touch the saturation button - essentially just increased brightness on the lion, lowered brightness on the BG and upped contrast slightly on the lion to cut through the apparent haziness in the OP. :)

[Ken Watkins]

Morkel,

Monitor calibration is now complete, I use Spyder 2.

The original still lacks a little punch, and yours still looks oversaturated.

If I knew why these colour differences occur I would try to explain, but I have no idea, I will be interested to see what others say.

Do you use IE, as Al told me that it is not very good for viewing images on the web because it has no colour management, Firefox has certainly improved my problems with redness.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Ken I am viewing in Firefox...

how's this - same file with saturation dropped 12 points (you were there :))

[Hilary Hann]

Ken, please explain? I did not touch the saturation button - essentially just increased brightness on the lion, lowered brightness on the BG and upped contrast slightly on the lion to cut through the apparent haziness in the OP. :)

One of the downfalls of photoshop (and Lightroom, I guess) is the inability to make adjustments to brightness, curves etc. without changing the colour saturation, inadvertently. For example, the RGB Levels display shows all the red, green & blue levels of tone in the image, however the RGB Curve display only shows one value comprising 30% of the red channel, 59% of the green plus 11% of the blue channel to produce the 256 levels of tone. So whilst the RGB curve represents the perceived luminosity of the image, any adjustment of the RGB curve is translated unequally into the individual RGB channels acording to the P/S luminosity formula. This gives you the shift in colour. One way around this is working LAB mode … but that is another story.

This is a very handsome lion but agree that it needs more contrast and punch. I don't mind Morkel's repost but I've always liked a bit more saturation and contrast than some.

[Deborah Harrison]

I've been admiring your Zimb series and love this head on view with the majestic stare. I for one am in a minority and prefer the original rendering which could have a bit more pop - however I prefer the more subtle dusty bush browns. The only thing I would do with the original is to brighten up the eyes a bit.

Just my 2 cents!

[Ken Watkins]

Deborah,

Thanks a lot, I thought I was alone:D
I did lighten the eyes a bit, the TIFF has more oomph, sometimes the JPEG does not appear to be as good, I am a great fan of relatively natural colours, it was after all a dull day.

[Hendri Venter]

What a magnificent Lion. Great low angle and good eye contact. I like Morkel's 2nd post.