Flying Coyote

[Craig Wallace]

Lucked out to capture this coyote hunting for his dinner. Nikon D2Xs 80-400mmvr f7.6 1/800sec iso 400. The light was not the best, early afternoon sun, sun was behind the Coyote. Shadow/highlights to deal with the shadow on the face. I usually post in Earger to learn, but no one has commented. Thanks for looking and comments are welcome.

[Ken Watkins]

Craig,

You have got IMHO far to much contrast here and it looks much too bright and perhaps oversharpened ( but that could be the contrast).

Not much I could do with the JPEG, but here is a "cheap and cheerful" alternate take, done quickly and not very well!

[Craig Wallace]

Thanks Ken, Your changes make a big difference. I'm a fledgling at Photoshop, and photography and appreciate all comments and suggestions.


Cheers Craig.

[Rachel Hollander]

Craig - You did the hard part - capturing the coyote mid-pounce. The light does look harsh. I agree with Ken's observations and his repost improves the image.

TFS,
Rachel

[Paul Taylor]

Great capture and I wish I had it to work with.

I am a million miles away from a PP guru (makes me laugh even to say it) but I think if you work with it starting on the premise that it is too bright it might come out much better - sounds like you focused on lightening the shadows first and foremost but for me you need to deal with the bright areas first (in ACR or Lightroom) and use that as the starting point. Lightening of the face can come after. That way might make it easier to get it to where Ken took it, which is in the ballpark for me - maybe a little darker than it would need to be if the highlights weren't so bright. It's never going to be perfect because of the light, but I am sure if you take your time and try various things you can get something really good out of it.

[Pieter de Waal]

Hi Craig , fantastic action you captured, like the concentration, focused ears and position of the paws. As mentioned the light was quite bright and I would suggest following "Roberts processing tips " at the top of this forum. I hope you don't mind but have applied "Multiplied highlights layer" at 55% opacity to your image, I am sure that working from your RAW file will produce a better result than this.
103995

[DanWalters]

Like the repost. Nice color and the coyote stands out more. Like the intense stare.

[Harshad Barve]

lovely image and re-post took this over top
TFS