Grand Canyon Rock Squirrel

[Ian Cassell]

Spermophilus variegatus

Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6
1/1000 sec f/9 ISO 400

Levels and sharpening in CS6

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ian, how are you liking CS6? Have you tried the content aware move tool? Sick! And I love the dark interface. You have a serious case of side-lighting in this one, and the angle seems odd to me. Could you have moved to your right to get more even sunlight? I'm seeing quite a bit of noise and banding in the background. I would suggest toning down the one rock at the bottom of the frame. Cute little squirrel!

[Ian Cassell]

Thanks, Kerry. If I'd moved much to the right, it would have been a long last step :0 I'll tone down the rock, though.

What do you mean by 'banding'?

I haven't had much time to play with the new features of CS6. I gave a quick try to CA Move and yes it is awesome! Generally, though, I'm using it the same as CS5 so far.

[Kerry Perkins]

Ian, banding is an artifact of reduction in color bit depth, often induced by noise-reduction software. What you see in the image is an abrupt change in color resolution, which is seen as bands of color. I have taken your image and increased the saturation to amplify the effect. Look at the splotchy background. This is the result of a decrease in the bit depth of the color. This technique is known as color sub-sampling.

[Ian Cassell]

Hmmm ... but how do I get it when I don't do NR? I didn't do any NR on this one.

[Kerry Perkins]

Ian, was this a big crop?

[Ian Cassell]

Nope -- essentially full-frame here. Could it be an artifact from my hosting site? I'm going to need to go back into the file on the image tonight when I get home and look and see if it looks that way.