This little piggy went to market ...

[Ian Cassell]

Canon 7D
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L
1/2000 sec f/7.1 ISO 400

Crop for composition, levels, sharpening in CS6
NR in NIK Dfine 2.0

I don't understand the halo on the bird's legs. It was there in the RAW image before any sharpening at all.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Ian....nice shot....unique....You might consider toning down the perch for contrast with those claws

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Ian, we had a "feet" theme here a few years ago. This image makes me think we should do it again! As for the halos, I'm surprised that they are in the RAW image. Check your import settings in LR4 and see what is being applied to the image by the conversion. Good suggestion by Bob, I would bring all the highlights down to even out the exposure.

[Jon Rista]

Intriguing capture! I like it.

Regarding the halos, every RAW photo intrinsically has some kind of "camera profile" or base tone curve applied, and possibly some other base adjustments. It might be that whatever tool you are using is applying a tone curve/adjustments in such a way that the halo exhibits by default. You might try applying the most neutral tone curve/camera profile/camera settings available, and tweak from there. (As a general rule, I always import my RAW's into Lightroom with the Canon Neutral "camera settings" profile, which is essentially the same as using the in-camera "neutral" picture style. Gives me the most un-processed original import and the greatest base exposure latitude to work with.)

[Ian Cassell]

This is interesting. I downloaded and went from Bridge to CS6 (didn't use LR for this one as I was doing it on my laptop). I've never had this issue before. I wonder if it had something to do with the way the light was hitting the legs. As the halo seems to be only on one side, could this be some form of diffraction? In any event, I'm going to go back to the software and look around and see if some kind of sharpening is turned on. Thanks.

EDIT; I went back into Bridge and ACR and checked. Sharpening is turned all the way to zero and I can see the halo in both Bridge and ACR (and exaggerate it with the highlights/shadow sliders) even before importing in CS6. I then found Camera Raw preferences in the CS6 menu and found that 'apply sharpening to all images' was turned on. The other option was 'apply sharpening to preview images only. I changed it to that option and tried again. I think this is better.

[Randall Farhy]

Hi Ian, I love detail shots such as this though I find I don't take enough of them. They certainly add interest to a body of work. Re: those halos- sometimes I wonder if it's a phenomena of light and what the sensor sees in extreme contrast environments- I know that if I look at a telephone pole against a bright blue sky, my eyes see a halo on the edge-especially if it's back lit- very much like an artifact of sharpening.