Here is a picture of an endangered Brown Teal.
Have noticed that several of my duck posts to one of my galleries have mentioned the somewhat wooden look of various species of duck.
I think it might be over-sharpening but would appreciate views of other duck photographers as to which processing stage to use the delicate touch on !!!
With thanks
Ian Mc
Hi Ian,
Your subject looks good as far as the details in his feathers and the natural brown color; but the duck is too centered in the frame also those green grass blades cutting across his body kills the image and the wire square mesh or screen in the background simply doe not do it for me...:eek:
Doesn' look over sharp to me at all, but the duck almost seems to have, painted isn't quite the right word, quality to it and I mean that in a good way. Wonderful detail everywhere on the duck.
My critique of the image would be the look of fencing on the right and the grass across the back. Still lots to really like along with the deep rich colors of the duck.
Thanks Gus and Nonda
I took another image of the same bird without use noise reduction ( tried two different brands) and that one looks to me a bit less "wooden". Interesting.
Wonder whether its the ducks waterproofed feathers which lends to the "wooden !!!" tendency ??
very nice Ian....sharpness looks quite good....no halos showing.
On noise reduction, IMO it is best to use less on a well exposed bird, but generally need to go pretty heavy on the bg.
So do noise reduction selectively, just as you would the sharpening step....sharpen the bird, but not necessarily the bg.
be sure to do all noise reduction prior to any sharpening....looking really good here
Thanks Oscar, Dave & Alfred.
I have been leaning toward the Noise reduction as being a big part of image improvement so am gratified to read I'm on the right track.
Really like Dave's point about less noise reduction on well exposeed shots and Al's advice about adjustment layers. The challenge continues.Whoopee !!!
Ian Mc
Wooden duck look.
Posting Permissions
