Theme- After Siesta

Hi Everyone!

Back after a long absence, had my kids and parents for the December holidays, combine that with draining days at work..All you do is work, come home cook and entertain..
No time for anything else...
Trying to return to normal, found that I am so rusted with PP, falling about!?

This is new for me, the High Key effect. Hope this meet the criteria.. Found an old image that I like, was not the sharpest, but processed it as best I can..
LR5 for RAW and B&W conversion, CS6 normal adjustment layers, some TK to tame the whites and get some detail in blacks.
Two rounds of selective sharpening after resizing.

Some history behind the image: Captured October 2012, the most/often lions ever seen. The Eland comes down to the Riverbeds from the dunes for some unknown reasons some years, the first for me in 20years.
Their bulk and lack of speed make them very easy prey for a pride of lions at the waterholes, they were decimated..
Our Rooiputs pride which consist of between 6-8 individuals, killed almost every night at the water, not 300m from our campsite.
The lions were obese, glutinous, but could not resist the easy meal. To this day you can see the remains of the Eland around waterholes in both Nossob and Auob riverbeds.

This sub-adult male has just woken up from an midday-heat siesta with grass in his mane, dried blood caking from the early morning meal. He is thirsty, need to drink and rest more for tonight...
We had them coming to investigate our camp some mornings-
it can be a real handful to control 8 lions not to destroy your camp:bugeyed:

Techs
Nikon D3S with 600 F4
1/320 @6,3 (might explain the lack of sharpness?)
ISO 2500
Aperture Priority with Centre Weighted Metering
+0.3EV

Nice toning/treatment here Andre. Could perhaps go a bit brighter in the whites for true high key?
I will never forget the eland massacre of Oct/Nov 2012!
The eyes and snout are the most evidently soft, probably the result of your techs shooting on a 600mm in the excitement of the moment :)
Good to see you posting again, hope the hectic part of the season is past you now.

Hi Andre - Great to see you posting again. I like the look to camera and the grass in the mane. I agree with Morkel about going a bit brighter and perhaps even open up the midtones a bit for more of a true high key image. Like with Gabriela's image, I'd like to see this as a high key color image as well.

TFS,
Rachel

Very good portrait full of character. Yes, he certainly has "bed-head" hair! Or maybe a bit of a "hang over" look with the locks hanging down either side of his face and his mane full of grass bits! The eyes staring straight into the camera make this very dramatic. And a very dramatic story to go along. I had to google high key and found that a nearly white bkgd is part of the effect and that most of the image should be in the right half of the histogram.

Nice conversion, I think it works well. Lack of critical sharpness is already mentioned. I like the grass in the mane. TFS Andre!

Hi Andre great to see you find your way back to the fun stuff at the computer .
Leaving the sharpness issue aside i like the conversion and the tones you brought out with your edits . I agree for a "true" HK you can go a bit brighter in the whites , specially the BG . I like the eye contact and the look of the lion , like you have called him by name :t3 to get his attention. He has certainly not the nice hairdo like Rachel`s fat Kruger lion walking on the road .
Looks like a real LION from the Kalahari.

Hope you find your time to get back into spur

TFS Andreas

Superb image Andre, I like the stare into the camera, the great amount of details and the comp. TFS.

Thank you Morkel, Rachel, Nancy, Dumay, Andreas and Sanjeev.

Took in all the advice, went back to PSD file, did some more adjustments, and added a midtown layer to open them up .
Run three different selective sharpening rounds.
Does he look like a real High Key KALAHARI lion?:eek3:

Oops, after posting realised forgot to remove spot on far LHS!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andre Pretorius

Does he look like a real High Key KALAHARI lion?:eek3:

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Indeed he does , i think you made the most out of it :5.
TFS Bro