Just back from Katmai

[Stan Cunningham]

Lot's of action and lots of cloudy rainy weather but we all had a great time.
This sow was chasing fish and I chose to post this one since the fish got so shallow they were out of water.
I feel it still may be a little grainy as I still seem to struggle with sharpening for the web when I've lightened an area (face).
Canon 5D Mark III, 500 F4 with 1.4 so 700mm, 7.1 at 1/2000 at ISO 1000.
About a 30% crop, shadows, vibrance, and clarity in LR, PS levels, and a series of tweeks in Nik viveza and color effex.
Action was fantastic but with school starting in a week processing time will be slow.

[Loi Nguyen]

Nice action shot and in good light. Love the 3 fish! As for composition, I understand why you cropped this way, however, I feel the image is a bit unbalance and wish for a little more room on the left. Loi

[Jamie Douglas]

Welcome back Stan. That is one determined looking bear you got there and a cool photo. The fur looks a little flat definition wise so it might benefit from a mid tone boost and I agree with Loi about the balance. Could be cured with leveling the image to remove the oof strip on water on the bottom RHS.

[edwardselfe]

Great image - love the fish and the bear's intense stare. I think it might benefit from CW rotation which would level the water, remove the strip of blue from bottom rhs and give the bear a more 'rotating/dynamic' action pose. If this is a 30% crop, you've got plenty of options, but I like the one you've chosen, particularly if you tried with the rotation. Something like this?



I would also try a bit more selective sharpening on the bear - there's such good detail in the splashing water than the bear looks a little soft in comparison.
Would love to photo these guys one day!
Ed

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Stan,
great interaction of the bear with his environment, love the stare to the salmons.
Good composition and tonality, as yourself said i think the bear could stand more USM.Think watching the techs , there should be more sharpness.

Took the liberty to RP, i have dropped the yellows by 20points, mid tone boost with curves and sharpened the whole image a tad , lightened the eye and cropped to pano format.

WDYT ?

Cheers Andreas

Still a good one.just needs some tweaks .

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Stan, the image tells a story and that is great, a fun packed image.

Great action and good to see you are in the thick of it. Ed did what I had in mind, certainly somewhere around a 2 degree rotation and with that kit then image should be a lot cleaner/sharper, even with a slight crop. Not sure if the vibrance might be a little high, but all personal preference. Certainly I too agree on a tad more space on the LHS just to balance things, easy once you rotate. Still puzzled why people need additional NIK stuff when LR & PS has it all IMHO. Look forward to more.

TFS
Steve

[Stan Cunningham]

Thanks for the comments as always. I made most of the suggestions and think I got what bothered some of you with the crop.
Here's the RP.

[Markus Jais]

Stunning action shot. I like the water splashes, the fish and their color and the head turn of the bear.

Markus

[Morkel Erasmus]

Stan, great action. I particularly love how the pink salmon stand out. Leveling is always an issue and it's an instinctive call to look at how the bear was standing, but the viewer's immediate gauge is the line of the water level.
I like what Ed and Andreas did for reposts (prefer the sharpness of Andreas' RP).
Your last repost is too light in the shadows, as if you overcooked a shadow/highlight adjustment and has made it look "forced/fake" (make sense?).

[Brendon Cremer]

Still puzzled why people need additional NIK stuff when LR & PS has it all IMHO. Look forward to more.

TFS
Steve

Steve you are quite right there's not much (If anything at all) that LR and PS together can't do, however the NIk package is much more user friendly and quicker for those not as familiar with the ins and out of PS.

[Brendon Cremer]

Lovely image stan, i think somewhere in between all the RP's is where this needs to be. Andreas RP is much better regarding the sharpness. I like the Pano style crop, however the OP's crop was also good for me, i liked the space. Colours all look great to me, just your last RP is certainly overcooked a little in the Shadows and Highlights adjustment.