Bat-eared fox at den entrance

[Tom Graham]

Tanzania, Feb 2011, Ndutu area. Early morning we came upon 2-3 bat-eared fox scrambling around their multi-entranced den area. (No kill with them). Sun was up but all of the ground area was still in shade - until finally it began to cast through. Thankfully before they all scrambled below.
Nikon D40X, 18-200 zoom at 150mm, 1/250, f8, ISO 800
Processing - cropping to taste, contrast, saturation, sharpening, etc. And then white-balance, to taste, finding (trying to find) a balance that looks natural.
All C&C and re-works welcome.
Tom

[Robert Amoruso]

Tom,

Interesting looking critter and I like the unobtrusive surroundings. The shaft of light on the face is appealing but a bit too bright IMO. I would recommend reducing its luminance as well as saturation. I tried using Shadow/Highlights correction PSCS5 and lowered saturation and like the results. Also opened up shadows too.

I decided the post the result here.

[Tom Graham]

Many thanks Robert for your re-post. I do like it.
During PP I was unsure about all of that and including the saturation of the whole image. And also color/white balance, the early sun was very warm. Thanks again for confirming my own doubts/issues.
The image aspects I was sure I liked were the general pose, eye contact, background, and clear view of the little critter. A view without grass/bush obstruction on small mammals is often difficult. And of course the burst of sunlight across the face is my favorite bit.
Tom

[Nancy Bell]

These are very cool little foxes. Great that you have such a clear view. Robert's repost does address the too-brightness on the face.

[Hilary Hann]

I love bat eared foxes and you have a good clear view here Tom. Well done, they usually seem to find some grass to sit behind! I like Robert's repost which has controlled the light.

How much of a crop did you need to make?

[Tom Graham]

Hi Hilary - Cropped quite a bit. Below the original image from the Nikon NEF/RAW as turned into JPG by IrfanView. Yeah, cropped!!!
Some under exposed huh? Least a stop. Why? Because I was not attentive enough to exposure settings!! Probably because I was using pre set shutter (1/250) and f (f8) with auto ISO and ISO max was set at 800. So 1/250, f8, ISO 800 is what I forced it to shoot. Then in PP I have to try and make something decent out of it :S3: . Thus how bright etc should the face should be. Also FWIW, since lens was at 150mm I should have been using the other body/lens, the 70-300 zoom, would be sharper at 150, than the 18-200mm.
98154

Tom

[Susan Candelario]

Interesting fox indeed. I like the ears and the fox looking at you. Robert's repost made it shine.

[Roger Clark]

Hi Tom,

Nice image. Despite having seen many of these animals, I have never gotten as clear of an image as you have here. I have never been this close. I think I actually passed this den, but it was too dark and we didn't stick around. Same in 2007 and 2009.

Good job. I like Robert's repost.

Roger

[Tom Graham]

Thanks Roger. It was indeed dark for some minutes, have many snaps to prove it :S3: . Finally the sun and critters positioned for something decent. I'm going to re-PP mine, taking it down to like Roberts.
Tom

[Hilary Hann]

Tom, if I had that original raw file I could have some real fun turning it into a textured image … would really suit what I'm doing now. It has given me the incentive to look at my fox images although I don't think I have as clear a shot. Who knows though … we get inspiration from all sorts of different sources! :bg3:

[Tom Graham]

Hi Hilary - Sure, happy to have you work with it, you've done some nice conversion work. I've put the Nikon NEF of it on a site and sent you a PM with its location. Enjoy :S3:
Tom

[Hilary Hann]

Thanks Tom, very generous. I'll let you know if it works or not. I've worked three images today and they are all rubbish. Ah well, that's the way it goes sometimes. :w3

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Tom - sorry I am late to this post...:bg3:
I must say I am glad to see you posting an image, it's been a while since something from your camera has graced the Wildlife forum here on BPN :w3.

When I looked at the OP something looked off to me. The colours and graininess seemed strange, and I wanted to think "too much shadows/highlights"...and then scrolled down the thread and saw your post of the original JPG...which is considerably darker and explains that you in fact must have lifted the shadows a whole lot?? Am I correct or did you use another step? IMHO there are ways to get detail back from the shadows without getting that "S/H tool" look.

To be honest, I quite like your "JPG" post with the dark surrounds and the shaft of light hitting the fox's face. :e3

[Tom Graham]

Hi Morkel - thanks for your welcome.
And you are right on, I did use Photoshop S/H to lighten image. And I'm sure I ran some noise reduction on it also, probably Noise Ninja. So all of that plus trying to get a good color balance and saturation from the original dark image is not optimal :S3: . Would very much appreciate how you would -not- use S/H to raise the shadows and over all darkness.

The original JPG you say. Its original framing appeals to me also. Maybe not so much crop would be better? But hard to say, guess I'm not artistic enough to see that image as compared to a "traditional" approach of presenting the subject (cropped with much emphasis on it)??

Thanks for looking and would appreciate more of what you are thinking.

Tom

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Tom
Well, for most 'end-goals' in Photoshop there are a few ways to go about it.

For lifting shadows:

1. Use the S/H tool...:w3
2. Do a luminosity mask of the darker tones and do levels adjustments on just those tones...
3. Do a selection of roughly the darker area, feather, and do levels adjustment on that selection
4. Do a midtone boost in levels/curves

Which one would you like me to explain to you in more detail?
(option 2 would work the best IMHO)

[Tom Graham]

Hi Morkel,
OK, thanks. Let's do your fav num 2. (I've already tried the S/H).
Also, I sent you a PM giving a link to download the RAW/NEF if you'd like to play with it.
Thanks for the learning opportunity :S3:

Tom

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Tom. Did a very quick work on the JPG you sent me...and must be said on a less-than-ideal monitor so bear with me.

Anyhow, this is how I would have worked it up given the underexposure, the nice light on the fox, and the overall placement of the fox.

Steps: (all shortcuts as used on PC, not sure what the Mac equivalent would be)

1. Adjusted "Levels" so that the end markers touched the extreme points of the histogram of available light.
2. Adjusted "Levels" midtone slider to the left by 0.1 for midtone lift.
3. Created duplicate layer of the entire image (CTL+J).
4. Right-click on the duplicate layer - go to "Blending Mode".
5. Change mode to "Screen".
6. Adjust "Screen" layer opacity to about 40-50% to taste. Now shadows are lifted a tad without the garish Shadow/Highlight tool "look".
7. Selected only the fox very carefully...made sure to "feather" the selection afterwards for smooth pixel transition. Made duplicate layer of the fox.
8. Cropped some and downsized to 1000px wide.
9. Reduced noise on the BG layer...2 rounds, strength 6.
10. Sharpen fox with 2-3 rounds of Smart Sharpen @ 125%, 0.2px
11. Decided I want to crop more, so cropped to have fox's face on LHS ROT vertical. Resulting image was about 850px wide.
12. Adjusted levels on the fox a wee bit to make it stand out more.

Curious to know what you think...

:Whoa!:

[Tom Graham]

Thanks Morkel, I like it a lot. Especially the green is not as bright/vibrant as mine and thus does not distract from the fox.
And thanks for your step-by-step. I'm going to play with it to explore variations for comparison.
Tom