What a Drip

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Another from this summer when I had a few days to shoot this pair of visiting Avocets. The light was close to gone when I shot this one which is always so pretty on the water. I had to play with the color balance because the original looked a little greenish to me. Does it look okay here? Image looks darker on this site than on PS to me?
Canon 1DMIV
300mm 2.8 w2x
ISO 800 f8 @1/800... crazy 8's

[nrohrbacker]

Great golden light! The detail, low shooting position giving smooth BG and the drop make for a nice shot.

[Nick Palmieri]

Great post and nice low angle. Love the water drops. the light is off the charts!

[Karl Egressy]

Sweet image, Cheryl. I like the HA, the nice light and water droplets.

[Shawn Zierman]

Beautiful avocet image. Nice sense of motion, water beads on the head are a nice detail, and of course the drips/ripples.
Exposure work looks great. Warmth and colors look sweet.

[PhilCook]

lol...interesting title, very apt.

Liking very much the calm water and of course the droplets, the golden light seems to have no green tinge as you corrected. My own thoughts however say that the gold color tone is a bit over the top and as such very little detail is showing through, to me it looks a bit unnatural...." dont shoot me, I'm only the piano player "

[Richard Unsworth]

Cheryl

Beautiful, and to answer your question does not look any cast/color issues here!
The quality of light and intense detail in the bird and the water drops make this one, probably the best Avocet shot Ive seen

[Gary Esman]

Hi Cheryl, very nice. Like the low angle, eye contact and of course the drops. I ran it through Color Efex Pro to neutralize the whites a little. I hope you like it.

[Danny Laredo]

Wonderful image all around Cheryl.

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Cheryl, just love the light, low angle, and the droplet puts this over the top. With regards to the colour warmth, I would go with an in between of your OP and Gary's.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

lol...interesting title, very apt.

Liking very much the calm water and of course the droplets, the golden light seems to have no green tinge as you corrected. My own thoughts however say that the gold color tone is a bit over the top and as such very little detail is showing through, to me it looks a bit unnatural...." dont shoot me, I'm only the piano player "

Hey Phil. I agree with you totally and will rework the file.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Hi Cheryl, very nice. Like the low angle, eye contact and of course the drops. I ran it through Color Efex Pro to neutralize the whites a little. I hope you like it.

Gary that looks great. I have Color efex, what tool did you use? Thanks for your time

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Hi Cheryl, very nice. Like the low angle, eye contact and of course the drops. I ran it through Color Efex Pro to neutralize the whites a little. I hope you like it.

Found it Here's my repost

[Grace Scalzo]

Cheryl, I'm not the best at this stuff, but the red channel looks blown. I hope that Arash chimes in here. I struggle with this in warm light. Worth figuring this out because the image is gorgous.

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the low angle and the water drop. nice pose and details. It has a strong yellow cast and Grace is right that the red channel was blown.

here is a corrected version, better to start from RAW

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I like the low angle and the water drop. nice pose and details. It has a strong yellow cast and Grace is right that the red channel was blown.

here is a corrected version, better to start from RAW

Arash, Thanks so much for your time and efforts but this doesn't work for . I see no golden tones here at all which was the best part of the light to me. I agree my repost is still a bit strong and I am still favoring #8. I'm going to work on it some more.

[arash_hazeghi]

color balance is way off in both pane 8 and original, Avocet in winter coat is a white bird not red or yellow. You can keep the nice warm tones but still correct the WB. The blown red channel and yellow cast make it look a bit unnatural IMO.

maybe something like this which was taken in comparable light with warm tones




set the neutral whites and then warm up the color temperature a bit to keep the warm feel.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

I understand that and i know the bird is white but don't the whites take on the tones that the light is shining on them? The images from this entire shoot have that golden cast to them because the light was golden so does that make it wrong? Im just saying a white object in orange golden warm whatever you call it will not remain white right? So I do like the look of the avocet in your repost but don't like the bg . It looks brownish greenish blah :) How do you warm up the temp without re-warming up the whites all over again? I am starting over from raw... I"LL BE BACK LOL

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

OK guys. I must seriously need some eye training here because I thought that frame 8 was good. NowI see not so after re-working the image. I took Arash's advice but added a little warm filter and some vibrance. Please tell me this is better. BUT what I don't get is why are the images sooo yellow with a setting of AWB? I do remember the light was very golden

[arash_hazeghi]

The last repost is best. You nailed it. Good job. The cast may not be coming from camera what RAW converter are you using ?

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

The last repost is best. You nailed it. Good job. The cast may not be coming from camera what RAW converter are you using ?

Sweeet! Ok I use CS5 and I start in Camera Raw

[Gary Esman]

Cheryl, agree number 19 looks great!

Gary.

[arash_hazeghi]

Sweeet! Ok I use CS5 and I start in Camera Raw

Camera RAW is not great wh

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Camera RAW is not great wh

what do you use?

[arash_hazeghi]

what do you use?

Canon DPP

[Marina Scarr]

The last repost looks best, Cheryl. I remember going back and forth with Arash about the yellow in one of my owls about a year ago. I just remembered that glowing yellow, but he was right and my yellow were cooked. It was a good lesson. Lovely details in the feathers, Cheryl, and I like the water droplets.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions!

[PhilCook]

I agree #9 is a good compromise but #19 is my personal preference, the strong golden sunlight colors may be well represented in the original at the time taken, but I prefer #19 for a more natural bird colorations.

Having said this, and reading other suggestions/C&C it can be very difficult to distinguish between personal tastes and good techs.....guilty as charged Ma'am.

The important thing is......if it pleases you then it's perfect

[Frank Schauf]

Perfect comp and light, nice work.

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

So happy to have learned something today! Thanks

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Cheryl, as I mentioned before on another post, if you get the WB right in PP them the rest will fall into place. IMHO it's the basis of the whole image and can easily be adjusted/corrected if required.

Arash, my only comment to DPP is, do you not notice a colour shift from DPP to PS, unless Canon has perfected that? Your skill and understanding of DPP is far greater illustrated in your images, however if Cheryl is trying to get the basics right would a colour shift then throw her, just a thought?

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Steve there never was a color shift from DPP to PS. I have never seen or heard about this. Maybe you have the wrong color profile in DPP. It is in preferences.

[Steve Kaluski]

Interesting Arash, no all setting good here, however I would always get a colour shift, it would look great in DPP, but when exported to PS it just lost all that lovely colour. I ask a good friend of mine who writes Tech stuff and does Digital video's for Canon's new launches and even he felt there were colour shift, but to my knowledge you can't export as a Smart object, or am I wrong? I sometimes use this to create a basic file as it means I'm still not using a Tiff only the RAW, once it's looking right I will then 'bake' it as a tiff for further work.

Sorry meant to say, I also work in ProPhoto too.

cheers
Steve

[arash_hazeghi]

I bet your settings are messed up. If you open DPP and go to tools-->preferences--> display what is it set to?