Barn Swallow

[Kent Wilson]

Barn Swallow photographed with Canon 20D, 100-400@ 400
Exposure: ISO 400, 1/250, f/16.

I was using a small f-stop because I was trying to take flight pictures of these guys, but when this one took a short rest, I clicked the shutter without changing my settings. I make that mistake a lot.

[Harold Davis]

that's a beautiful bird and the exposure looks good too!! there's two problems that stick out to me. the first is that it looks out of focus. i know sometimes i see images where i might miss the focal point being on the eye and the shoulder or another region might be in focus. here the entire image looks soft. the second is with the composition of the picture. the bird is in the center of the frame. if you moved the bird to the right side of the frame and give it a little extra room on the left side of the frame to look into, it would be much stronger.

cant wait to see more of the barn swallows. one of my favorite small birds!!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Kent,
Nice image, but Mr. Harold covered all the points...:D

[Kent Wilson]

Thanks for the comments. There is something I don't understand. In BreezeBrowser, my central AF point is lit up red. I take it that confirms focus. If my images are not in focus, then perhaps something is wrong with my camera/lens. (Same problem with the Palm Warbler I uploaded below.)

But I am hoping that there may be a problem with what I'm doing n PS. In this redo, all I did in PS was Nik RAW preprocessing; curves; dodged the back and head; applied Nik sharpening for Display at 75% and then reduced opacity of that layer.

I also got a new monitor, and I am wondering if I am not seeing what others see.

So how is this second try at the same image? Any improvement?

If not, any ideas what may be going wrong?

I really appreciate the time you folks have devoted to my images. Thanks.

[Sid Overbey]

Kent, on my monitor both images just look very pixelated. Did you crop and blow up the original? I do like swallows as well.

[Kent Wilson]

Cropped but not blown up.

[Harold Davis]

can you post an original with no processing at all? and when you see the red focus brackets, that's just it. just where the focus brackets were at the time you snapped the pic. doesnt apply to whether it was in focus or not.

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great shot with beautiful colors and background.!!!

[Kent Wilson]

This version is no crop from RAW. The only processing is as follows

Image> Mode:8 bit
Image>Size:96ppi
File>Automate> fit Image: 800,800
File>Save for Web and Devices: optimize for File Size: 145
Save.

[Kent Wilson]

And thanks again for your patience and help. I really do appreciate it. I just hope it's my processing work and there's nothing wrong with my lens.

[Sid Overbey]

Kent, the 96ppi makes it difficult to work with your image. What was the original ppi? Maybe you could post the image somewhere in its true raw form. Your original looks much sharper than the cropped version so I think the problem is in the processing.

[Kent Wilson]

Do you mean post the RAW file? Or convert but not change resolution, etc?

[Kent Wilson]

Ok, I uploaded 3 files to my University web site.

http://uic.edu/~kentw/images/Barn_Swallow4.jpg This is a jpg, converted from RAW with no changes in resolution or anything else.

I also uploaded the PSD file and the RAW file, if you can download them. They are

http://uic.edu/~kentw/images/Barn_swallow.CRS and
http://uic.edu/~kentw/images/Barn_swallow4.psd

If the change in resolution should be the problem, would it be better to change native resolution to 72ppi? The file size gets pretty large leaving it at 300 dpi.

Thanks again, very, very much for the help.

[Steve Canuel]

Hi Kent,
I don't know the technicals as well as many others but I did download your jpg version and tried some quick processing with my PS Elements 3 (primitive technique compared to most on this site). I'm sure others with more knowledge and experience can better guide you, but there does appear to be some hope for reprocessing. Size of eventual crop may be a limiting factor for you.
Steve

[Sid Overbey]

Kent, I did pretty much the same as Steve. First I did the crop, sharpened, and did minor color adjustment. Then resized and saved. I think, and others can correct me, that it is best to work at the highest resolution possible when making adjustments. When you like the image then you can save at a lower resolution.

Good luck.

[Kent Wilson]

Hi Steve and Sid --

I do work at highest resolution when processing in PS. In fact, I work with the idea of printing the image. It is only when I want help from the folks at BPN that I save at lower resolution as JPG. In general, I stay away from using JPG files for anything besides projection and the web.

I'd be interested in knowing whether the images you have kindly worked look pixelated on other monitors. To me, they look smoother.

I suspect now what is going on is that the image is oversharpened in Nik. I think that is the main difference between the images you gave me and those I did. I'd be interested in knowing if you agree. If that is it, then I feel a lot better, knowing it is not my lens/camera that is the problem.

You guys have really been a great help. Thanks once again. I hope my work will improve so that sometime I can return the favor.

[Sid Overbey]

Kent, both Steve's and my images are smoother on my desktop and laptop. I used a USM of 150/.03/0 to sharpen a little. You are probably right in that some preprocessing is over sharpening or doing something to cause the pixelation.

From the original it looks like the camera/lens are fine.

[Kent Wilson]

Thanks,Sid. I am very relieved that it is unlikely that my lens is not likely to be at fault. I have upgraded from the 20D to a 40D this year, so I'm not so concerned about the 20D. But the 100-400 is my workhorse for photographing birds.

Thanks as well to all who responded to this thread. I have been touting this website to friends and club members as a terrific resource. This is one of the things that makes it great.