Black Rhino in Harsh Light, Need Help!

[Loi Nguyen]

This image was taken about 10 AM with the sun behind and at an angle to the Rhino, casting a nasty shadow on his forehead.

I have been working on this image a dozen of times already, but not seeing much improvements, so would like to get your feedback how to improve it from here.

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X III
1/2000
f5.6
ISO-400
Manual Exposure

PP:

1. Increased exposure by 0.83EV in DPP before RAW conversion.

2. Selectively brighten the shadow areas.

3. Lightly crop for comp.

Thank you very much in advance.

Loi

[Diane Miller]

What an amazing creature! It looks like you have good detail in darks and lights, just somewhat low contrast.

When I reduce contrast in RAW conversion (using LR 4 or 5, or the equivalent in recent versions of ACR) using the Shadows and Highlights sliders, I often restore some mid-tone contrast with Clarity. Don't know how DPP would do it. You could do it in PS as well.

Have you tried B/W to see what it might do?

[Bruce Spell]

I felt similar to what Diane noticed. The contrast seems a bit low - almost like there was a haze. I can't tell what it is but the upper right hand side almost looks like a cloud of dust or something hanging there. I think boosting the midtone contrast will do a lot here. There is excellent detail in the rhino and a nice pose to boot. I notice almost a two-tone on the lower part of his body. Was the rhino recently in the water?

Seems like you had a wonderful visit over there!

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Diane and Bruce, thank you for looking. For the Raw conversion, I just increased the exposure by 0.8EV and increased the shadow slider a minimum amount (by 1). In CS6, I put the shadow on the forehead and below the horn on a different layer and selectively brightened it. I increased Vibrance by 30. I think Clarity slider only exists in LR, not CS6.

When I tried to increase contrast by using Curves in CS6 a small amount, the resulting image seems too contrasty, but may be because I oversharpened it, backing off on the sharpening produced this image, no I should go back and increase contrast again.

There is a Contrast slider in CS6 as well. Should I use it instead?

i did try B&W, but didn't like it. I have no experience with B&W though,

there was a water hole nearby, so the a rhino could have just come out of the water, but we didn't see him in it.

loi

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Loi, I think this is where you have two options for shooting, a) to shoot and worry about it later in PP, or, b) move to get a better angle for the light, or c) even, do both. I guess if you go to the opposite side the the subject would be moving away from you, however, with careful panning things like this can be overcome. I do however appreciate this is your first time to a location like this and understand how excited we all get, especially with a subject as magnificent as this.

I quite like the almost 3/4 angle as you get to see more of this great species, plus it offers a nice outline profile, BTW is this FF or a crop? The angle does portray shooting from a vehicle, however being slightly higher has meant that the grass is kept to a minimum covering the face. From you description, are you saying the light was behind the Rhino, high up, or was it striking the rear of the Rhino casting the strong shadow? Did you change the EV in camera to compensate? If this was backlit then I would ask Rachel on a PM about exposing in backlit conditions as she had a lot of experience with her leopard. The only thing is you can get Chromatic aberration, blue fringing, easily dealt with, plus you can do this in camera too.

Based on as presented, I would loose a little off the top and if you have it, more to the right. Also I might have gone with more DOF as you had the SS. There is a 'layer' that overlays the Rhino from along the horn down to the chest, it's certainly not water as the line would be softer and the whole area darker, it's probably a masking or an adjustment layer. The subject does look as if it has been 'lifted', lightened and I think at times shadows can be rather interesting as it gives shape & form, by removing it there is no real texture, everything looks flat with not much tone/form. If you revisit the image in ACR then you can do much more, if you add Clarity, just remember, it will/can add 'texture' too if you apply too much and can make it 'gritty/contrasty' just depends on what you want to do, however with ACR 8.1, like LR4/5 you need to be sparing with it and certainly no where near the amount used in the older versions like LR3. You were working in ACR so I'm not sure why you went via DPP compared to ACR or LR, as personally I find it too limiting in what you can do, but just my personal thought here.

IMHO I would go back to the RAW, I just changed the black slider in Levels, then applied a Curves adjustment to light parts, then took it back into LR and adjusted the sliders in Exposure with then a small target adjustment. I've pushed, but hopefully going in that direction you can see what I mean, however it also highlights the areas that you have lightened too, remember, it's easier to darken than it is to lighten.

TFS
Steve

PS not sure if it needs a tad more below now for the virtual legs?

[Loi Nguyen]

Hi Steve, the image is a slight crop from FF, so yes I have room all around. As you can see from the shadow, the sun was shrinking the rhino from an angle and I was shooting from an angle as well, so the sun was about 90 to 120 digress relative to my shooting angle. No, I did not compensate for the exposure in camera, so the picture was under exposures by say about 0.8EV or so.

As for PP, I started out with LR4, then wanting to learn how to do things in layers, I switched over to CS6. I can give LR4 a try with this image. I'm off on a business trip and have a long flight ahead of me, but that means working from a lap top. Loi

[Steve Kaluski]

Loi, I'm just installing a new upgrade on suff, if it does what i think it can I will let you know, this may give you a direction to go fwd on. By all means try the laptop, but IMHO not ideal for many reasons and therefore I would suggest holding fire.

Between now and the end of september I would suggest you try and stick to one platform for processing then we can run through things, but if it's DPP then Arash is perhaps your best bet.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Loi,
not ideal light situation, i fully understand your kind of problems, just fighting myself with this kind of images.
I would suggest to try a double raw conversion, one for the highlights other one for the shadows , then mix the two in PS with masks.
If this sounds too complicated , you can try to download ALW Free HDR from "George de Wolfe".You can get the plugin with instructions from his website , for free.It helps to blend the two parts together, not working all the time perfect, but good to play with.

The image - always good to see a rhino with all of the horns.
Comp works fine , all in all as others stated , too flat all over as yourself know.

Good suggestions made by Steve.

TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Loi - Late to this and others as I was away for a long weekend. I really like the head up pose and the angled body. I do think your best bet would have been to expose to the right (ETTR) in the field with enough exp comp to exp the head/face properly. In general, pp is more forgiving going from lighter to darker than raising underexposure. As you can see from the op compared to Steve's, you lost a lot of the detail and texture in the op. Personally, I believe less is more in pp so getting it right in camera is more important.

TFS,
Rachel

[Diane Miller]

A wonderful tool for reducing contrast (after you have done what you can in LR 4 or 5 or recent ACR versions with the Shadows and Highlights sliders (new in Process version 2012) is to use Nik Color Efex 4's Detail Extractor in PS. It can be a very nice touch.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Steve has done a great job making your image pop. I think in the OP you tried to lighten the dark shadows too much and this gave you the result you do not like, kinda like a haze that someone pointed out. I think it would have been better to keep some of the darker areas (as per Steve's post) for a more natural lighting scheme. The "shadows" slider in LR4 works remarkably well and I love it but like all tools used too heavily starts to look un-natural if over used. I also find the algorithm in CS6's contrast slider is vastly improved and worth a try even for reducing contrasts. I'm still wondering what the line is going along the horn, chin, chest...is that a masking line where you tried to lighten the image?

BTW, this is such a magnificent creature, and you've captured it in all its wonderful grandeur...really like it save for the processing.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Loi, I've had the same problem with shadows in harsh light on the rhino if the sun is from a peculiar angle.

I think Steve's improved it greatly...though it's still better to work from RAW. B&W could be an option, I know it worked for a rhino that I shot in similar conditions - might give you some options. Couldn't find it on BPN so here's an external link: http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/photos/1678523/

[Loi Nguyen]

"I'm still wondering what the line is going along the horn, chin, chest...is that a masking line where you tried to lighten the image?"

Yes, Daniel, those are my bad masking lines.