Mullet Lover...

[Arthur Morris]

While leading my IPTs I go to great lengths to ensure folks wonderful opportunities. On the recently concluded SW FLA Spring IPT, the last ever large (14 folks) group, we carried a bucket and a cast net out to Estero Lagoon on our afternoon trek. I was able to catch a variety of small fish that the Snowy Egrets enjoyed. Then I caught a mullet about 8 inches long. The snowies investigated but decided that it was too big for them. Out of nowhere a gorgeous Great Egret in full breeding plumage flew in and gobbled down the mullet before any of us knew what had happened... Fortunately, it stuck around and posed and posed for the group.

Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens with the EOS-1D MIII. ISO 200. Evaluative metering +2/3 stop: 1/1250 at f/4.

Don't be shy: all comments welcome. Later and love and thanks to Alfred and Fabs and Axel for their help on the IPT

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

What can I tell you Artie, just beautiful, the detail is amazing, the only thing I find is the right side a little dark.

[Ed Cordes]

Love the green color around the eye! I also think the BG is super. Only nit - I wasn't there to partake ;)

[Caroline Darmo]

Beautiful specimen. Perfect exposure, feather details & head angle. Love the composition & the background enhances the bird. Lovely image.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

Great-looking specimen, details, and BG. It could go a tad brighter for my taste.

[Robert O'Toole]

This is what the image looks like with an embedded BPN monitor Cal strip. the whites are too dark, really they are a light gray. This was post was requested by Artie after I brought the dark image tone to Artie's attention. FYI the last square on the strip is not to reference a white tone in an image, the level is 255 so if any white in your image matches that tone it is totally blown :)
Robert

[Robert O'Toole]

This is a repost with a more natural white tone and lightened (masked) BG.

Looks better to me, comments welcome.

Reposted with Vignetting correction of +23, +34 in CS3.

Robert

[Linda Robbins]

Great repost of Artie's beautiful image. That is one gorgeous great egret!

[Steve Wheeler]

Two thumbs up for the re-post!

Steve

[Bob Blanchard]

That sure was a beautiful bird! Great work on the re-post Robert. Thanks Artie for a wonderful IPT, that was full of opportunities like this one. I love the ones I got of him too.

[Leroy Laverman]

The repost is a nice improvement but it looks a little washed out with the lighter background. How about this version? Levels/curves adjustments with some selective sharpening on the bird's shoulder/neck through an edge mask.

The image itself has a nice painterly feel to it. The subtle color changes in the background are especially nice.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks to Robert and Leroy. Below is my re-post incorporating changes suggested by each. I have been in a "too-dark whites" rut lately. Thanks to all for opening my eyes to that.

I do prefer the background a bit darker than in Robert's version. The brightest whites are now R; 252, G; 240, B: 226.

The major question now is, "Is there detail in the whitest feathers?"

In an e-mail Robert, wondering about the vignetting, asked if the image was made with the 1Ds MIII where the vignetting would be expected. I double-checked: it was created with the 1DIII.

later and love to all, artie

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like Artie's repost best since the plumage doesn't have a blueish cast anymore and there is plenty of details.

[Dave Phillips]

looks really nice now to my eye Artie, still seeing details in the whites.
Only found one teeny tiny wee itsy bitsy area in red channel at 255(guess that is on my monitor).....I was laughing and going nuts trying to find after looking at histogram, was a challenge. Definitely the dark bg looks good IMO. This has been a bit of learning experience

[Arthur Morris]

Here is an e-mail exchange with Robert O'Toole that many might find educational:

ROT: 255 is pure white, with no detail. Since RGB is additive that means there is zero info there.


AM: Can you explain that. I understand that 255 is pure white = no detail but am confused about the additive part...

ROT: With RGB all the colors add up to make white. With LAB, there is a separate Luminosity, or black-gray-white tone channel. The color info separate. In CMYK is subtractive so no color at all, 0,0,0,0 is pure white.

AM: Should the whites be at 254?

ROT: Not usually. Best would be if they are one square over to the left of the whitest (255) box on the monitor calibration strip, that is, the tone next to pure white. Or, whenever there is detail in the whites.

You can, however, have the whites in the 230-240 range and not have any detail.

AM: That is what always bugs me; is there a way to explain that?

ROT: Yes, sometimes a white area on a bird looks blown, but when you measure the RGB value it is 241,245,242. The whites are not at all technically blown (overexposed) but the white lacks detail.

This has a lot to do with the surface and texture of an object. The softer and flatter the lighit technically is light-light-light gray and not pure white.

AM: That makes sense but I sometimes have whites in the sun, even in nice light, where the whites are at 245 but seem to lack detail... Is there an explanation for that?

Thanks for your help here Roberto!

And later and love, artie

[Lyall Bouchard]

This thread is one of the best I've read on BPN. Thanks, Artie, for showing us that everyone can benefit from the knowledge here. And Robert, I ordered your APTATs CD a couple of days ago, and now I'm more anxious than ever to get it!

[Robert O'Toole]

Here is an e-mail exchange with Robert O'Toole that many might find educational:


This has a lot to do with the surface and texture of an object. The softer and flatter the lighit technically is light-light-light gray and not pure white.

AM: That makes sense but I sometimes have whites in the sun, even in nice light, where the whites are at 245 but seem to lack detail... Is there an explanation for that?



I think in many cases it can be the quality of the light, diffused or direct, and the angle of the light, straight on and flat or angled to accentuate texture and details.
Also the camera itself can be a big factor (in terms or dynamic range), and the between the same cameras the settings can have a big impact (contrast and color space).
The RAW convertor used can have a huge impact. Breezebrowsers is much easier to use and faster in many cases but I dont like the way it handles white tones. I have found ACR (Photoshop's Raw Convertor) handles whites much much better with great detail in the whites.


Robert

[Leroy Laverman]

Great edit Artie. One of the problems with bright whites (and dark grays for that matter) is that it becomes difficult for our eyes to see subtle differences between shades that are similar in the extreme ends of the color gamut. In the squares above the upper left square is (255,255,255) and the right is (245,245,245). It's easy to see the difference between them with a straight edge. In the bottom rectangle the white forms a gradient from over the same color range. Each block is shown against a dark and light background. In a high contrast scene our eyes have more trouble with fine shade differences. If you look closely you should be able to see vertical bands of gray in the lower rectangle (posterization effect). To my eyes its easier to see the shade differences with a light background (lower dynamic range) than with the dark background.

This optical effect shows up in editing images as well. For example the background colors in lightroom are fairly dark. If you get the image looking good then post it against a bright white background it will look too dark, even though it looked fine with a dark background.

[Arthur Morris]

Hi Leroy, I am a bit confused. Can you please clarify the diagram above?

Thanks and later and love, artie

[Leroy Laverman]

Maybe this is easier to see. The various color blocks are marked. On my monitor I can see vertical bands in the gradient region. You can see this numerically in photoshop if you scroll your pointer through the gradient region. If you can't see where the bands are then open the image in photoshop and move the midpoint slider towards the right in the levels menu.

I can see the bands fairly easily with the light background but it's harder for me to see against the dark background.

I hope that helps explain things better. It's complicated by the fact that all of our monitors or not the same - even when calibrated.

[Dave Phillips]

this has been excellent Leroy....thanks for your time.
And thanks to you too Artie

[Doug Brown]

Excellent thread! Thanks to all contributors.