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Iceland July 2019 at 6:19 AM
Canon 1DX 600mm v3 and 1.4 x v3
ISO 640 SS 1/2500 F 7.1
This puffin is sharing the spotlight with something!
Cropped from landscape to portrait. Almost full vertically.
PP- LR CC and PS. Nothing added or cloned. Had to do some shadow work on the tail using Detail Extractor at 8%.
Comments and critiques always learned from and appreciated with thanks,
Gail
Hi Gail, i applaud your creativity here and how you showcased the puffin with the light that you had. Well done, the hitcher should bail before the next trip to plunge for fish. The whitewash on the rocks has a color cast to it but i do not know if you leave it bc of the shadowed light or correct? Either way, I like tis very much.
Very nice Gail...like the "spotlight" effect very much. So you have a new 600mm lens? Did you sell the one you had when you were here?
Gail another good puffin shot, I think the head on this one has a nice painterly feel to it and the black BG really shows off the colors.
-Tim
Fantastic! Puffin Fine Art ! Really nice work, Gail.
Hi Gail, I like it, but I would kill the blue coming through in the rocks & chest plumage and then try using a radial filter in LR for the Puffin. Not the best route, but it's a kind of quick fix and easy. If you had to use DE then you probably could have squeaked a bit more Exposure, then I may have 'Double processed' via smart Objects so I could control both BKG and subject, then made a composite. Hope it helps, nicely spotted.
TFS
Steve
Hey Gail, lovely image... I like it a lot. If mine I would try to get more separation between the birds neck and top of the back from the background. Not sure how, would have to try a couple things. The definition of the bird in that area gets lost. Other than that, beautiful bird, very creatively shown. Thank you for sharing.
I had a go at it in Lightroom. In the Basic Module I set the Shadow slider to +80 to open up the background a tad. To get rid of the Blue coming through in the black in HSL under Saturation I set the blue slider to -100. Wonderful image Gail from a wonderful trip,
Thanks to all for your suggestions.
Ann- I left the whitewash as is because if I made it whiter (by reducing the blues) I felt it would compete with the bird and pull the eye away.
Steve- I redid the image and reduced the blues in the whites of the puffin breast but left rocks as is for above reason. Great idea for the puffin whites though.
Joe- The downsizing to the JPEG has caused the separation of the neck and BG to be much less evident than on my TIFF or the full res JPEG. But what you did was excellent and I will use this idea in future!
Thanks all.
Your call Gail, but to me the blue in the rocks need to go, or at least reduced, but we all see things differently. :S3:Quote:
Ann- I left the whitewash as is because if I made it whiter (by reducing the blues) I felt it would compete with the bird and pull the eye away.
There shouldn't be that much loss Gail, if any, but why do you need a JPEG full res? Everything should be cropped from the Master Tiff 16 bitt, why do you have a compressed file? The only two files you require is the Raw and the Tiff. Retaining the 16bitt layered tiff means you can always return to it and make any necessary changes ie from feedback. Also, if as you do, work in LR then the Tiff is saved next to the Raw and you can still make changes on the tiff within LR.Quote:
Joe- The downsizing to the JPEG has caused the separation of the neck and BG to be much less evident than on my TIFF or the full res JPEG.
I like the drama you captured with this stealer of light. I also like what you were going for in your original, and I think the reposts are headed in the right direction, and could see somewhere between Steve's and Joe's reposts.
Geoffrey
http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu
This is really a great image, one of your best which is saying something.
There are a gazillion puffin photos, this one is exceptional.
Stunning image. Personally I like the background to be dark, but you could selectively brighten the legs a little for balance.
I did a redo incorporating Steve and Ann's idea of reducing the blues in the rock (I used the warming filter at 22%) selectively on the rock and I lifted the shadows on the feet (great idea Greg).
I tried various things to define more separation on the neck but I did not like losing any blacks in the BG so left it as is.
I like your processing edits, makes this steal the spotlight!
Nice Spot light effect. Black background really works in this image.
TFS
