Black bear with changed processing and monitor plus three questions

[Steve Uffman]

Still grinding away on the post processing so all comments,suggestions are welcome. Learned a great deal last week. A tip of the hat to Sid Garige who walked me through an image on line this weekend. and to all the others (too many to name) that weighed in and provided so much constructive help.

Here is another black bear image from Chas Glatzer's Black bear plus workshop. Canon 5dmkIII, 500mm f/4, tripod, M 1/250 f/5.6 ISO 400 Pattern Adobe RGB. Exposure set +2/3 off grass in area near bear. Mostly cloudy skies as rain moved out of area just minutes before. On this image, sun briefly peeked thru the clouds and forest behind the bear...which slightly back-lit the animal. Head in particular was still matted and wet as the bear stuck its head in and out of the soaked grass to feed.

Image processed with totally differently monitor and workflow. Shocking how much difference you can see with a monitor (NEC 30") designed for photo editing.

Workflow on this image-In LR4, set black /white points and slight crop to remove distracting stump that was in lower left corner. Also slight selective burn and dodge of background with adjustment brush to enhance the sudden, filtered and angled light coming through trees. Edited as smart object in CS6, healing brush to remove distracting stick to right of bear. also healing brush to remove some sucking insects from bears coat and eyes. then on to NIK for selective noise reduction by color ranges, then light TC. Back then to CS6, to flatten, size for web and Smart Sharpen using Lens Blur, .2px and ? % setting, More Accurate off.

Question 1: Did I break anything or additional steps I should take? for example, on OOF grass in front...anything I can or should do with that? clone sharp grass from another image or anything?

A second question about saving for the web. This image saved to BPN specs from CS6 yielded a 157KB file....parameters in save for web in CS6 are 66% quality, progressive, embed color, sRGB, bi-cubic .....also saved a copy using for BPN specs in LR4 export process which produced 234KB file.... I actually think the LR4 looks a tad better..but this is the CS6 save... Is one really preferable?

And a third question....Smart sharpening seems to take a while to process as it applies the algorithm....Wish that was faster.....Curious if there are any performance parameters that I need to have set in my preferences. I have 21GB of Ram and a pretty good processor...See a number of items that I can adjust in preferences...any thoughts?

Peace,
Steve

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Steve,
Just sent you a PM with some questions. Here is my quick attempt.WDYT?
Cheers Andreas

113932

[Ken Watkins]

Steve,

Firstly let me state that I have only ever seen Polar and Sloth Bears and know from what I have learned here that the colours of Bears vary considerably.

The OP looks to have a slight magenta cast in the fur but I think Andreas's re-post may be a bit too black?

Your processing still seems very complicated for me, but it clearly works.

The OOF grass is perfectly natural, leave it as is.

I generally use Smart Sharpen at 0.1 and 100%, doing other rounds if necessary and it works almost instantly.

You can only make full use of your ram in the 64 bit version, where you can set the amount in Preferences, Performance.

Lots of Ram certainly speeds up Nik:w3

For me the image is very nice

[Steve Uffman]

Thanks Ken the image does have a bit of magenta cast as you and and Andreas point out. While this bear is a reddish brown, the tint is clearly visible in the log to the right. I must train my eye to watch for that.. I have tweaked it a bit but the bear is not brown like the repost. Interesting that many black bears are anything but black. This gal has 3 yearlings of which only one is black. for me, processing right now is more about skill development than efficiency but that is about to change as I have so many images I need to reprocess after seeing them on a quality monitor. Appreciate you sharing the settings you use on smart sharpen. Have been a bit hesitant to go to such a percentage but to me the images do look better in that range.


I am running the 64 bit Cs6. Gave it a higher % of Ram. May play around with a few more settings to see if any impact performance

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - the colors of the grass look much better to me. I agree about the cast visible in the log but as others have said, these bears colors vary so only you can guage the accurate color of the bear. Sharpness looks good too.

TFS,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Steve, just mailed you my rework of the raw file you sent me of the other bear.
The IQ and processing on this one is in an entire different galaxy, my friend! :Whoa!: Great work!
I agree on the magenta cast, but Andreas' repost has a green cast to my eye. Somewhere in between will work nicely.

[Steve Uffman]

[QUOTE=Morkel Erasmus;808057]Steve, just mailed you my rework of the raw file you sent me of the other bear.
The IQ and processing on this one is in an entire different galaxy, my friend! :Whoa!: Great work!
I agree on the magenta cast, but Andreas' repost has a green cast to my eye. Somewhere in between will work nicely.[/QUOT

Heh, Heh, .....many thanks on this one...I think you are right on the somewhere in between on the color cast.....I have tweaked it a bit....Hard for Andreas to get it just right as he did not get to see the bear but he was quite correct and helpful in pointing out the color cast which I will train my eye to spot....New monitor makes a world of difference and when he pointed it out it was obvious....Also now that I have all the color space things worked out as I work on files and a properly and regularly calibrated monitor, I hope the color cast problems go to the BIN bucket.

Of course one of my goals with this image is what do you do with things such as the grass that is in the front of the bear but out of focus...was curious whether best practice would be to leave it as it or something more exotic like overlaying in focus grass from another image....seems after looking at a number of great posts from many that the OOF grass is not much to worry about.

Now on the other bear image which you graciously worked , I knew was a problem image when I posted. I tend to post some of my problem images to learn the boundaries of what can and cannot be done on an image. That image certainly served its purpose as I am miles ahead on sharpening in just a couple of weeks....and more conscious of color casts as well. Good post processing education from the forum....

However, another thing I learned from that image related to in camera. I have to be more careful when adjusting for changing light to get the proper exposure.....The shooting day was tough with the clouds, woods, meadows and such always changing the lighting conditions ....I was lazy in adjusting for exposure that I ignored DOF on a bear walking pretty much toward me. I have been told and taught about adding some light to bring out the detail on the fur (which I pretty well do) and to count my 'clicks' (which I don't always do)...If I had counted as I have been taught (great teacher Chas, but bad student Steve), I would have known that the selected aperture was insufficient to give me the depth of field required for a big bear walking towards me . If the head was in focus the rump would likely not.... I coulda, shoulda, made other and better adjustments on the fly.

Your suggestion that the other image should go to the BIN was delivered very politely....I agree except I plan to print it and stick it on my forehead and leave it there until I learn to "always" count my clicks so I know where I am! :cheers:

climbing the curve,
Steve

[Hilary Hann]

Steve, I can't think of another eager student of nature photography who is learning as quickly and with as open a mind as you are. Well done on this image, handsome bear.

[Steve Kaluski]

Steve, will come back to you on the post and your PM over the next day or so.

Steve

[Sid Garige]

Steve,

I am with your original post.

-sid

[Stan Cunningham]

Late post but with respect to the color the original could be dead on from my perspective. I was fortunate enough to study bears for 10 years and have handled over 250, and seen at least another 100 and a reddish tinge is common. In fact in the SW US the brown or red phase is more common than black. Black moms can have both brown and black cubs, etc.. No offense to Andreas but I've not seen a black bear with a greenish tinge.