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Thread: The Big Paw

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    Default The Big Paw

    Please Critique this image for me



    Full name: Timothy Luke Griesel
    Title: Its all in the paw
    Location: Kruger National Park
    Description of Scene: This big male lion was preoccupied with matingquite close to the road when I was able to capture this image. Taken around 4in the afternoon on the s21 near Skukuza. On a slightly cloudy day.
    Date: 2013-06-12
    Exposure Settings: Manual
    F/5.6
    1/250 sec
    ISO 400
    Focal Length: 400mm
    Camera Used: Canon 550D
    Lens Used: Canon 100-400mm L IS USM
    Common Name: African Lion
    Scientific Name: Panthera leo

    Post processed in Lightroom, converted to black and white, sepia toned using the split toning tool and then minor adjustments made
    Last edited by Morkel Erasmus; 10-02-2013 at 07:46 AM.

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Tim, no need to add your name in the title, The big paw is enough.

    Thanks
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Ah no problem Steve :) Thought I should

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    BPN Member Anette Mossbacher's Avatar
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    Hi Timothy,

    give it a shot in real B&W, without sepia. Bring up the whites and blacks more. That already brings out lots of detail. Your image above just looks quite a bit flat for me, IMHO!
    Hope to see a RP of this from you Try not to use presets of any program!

    Have a great day

    Ciao
    Anette

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    Hi Annette,

    Do you mean something like this?

    https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...27263562_n.jpg

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  7. Thanks Anette Mossbacher thanked for this post
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    BPN Member Anette Mossbacher's Avatar
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    Yes Timothy, but you need to watch your blacks within the paw! In your OP there are hair and detail, you lost them in your RP! You need to start with the color image, set and tweaked as a normal color image that to convert from there.
    Sepia you can add always at the end to your liking. It is a personal taste with sepia!
    Just look that you do not lose the details in the blacks with pulling the slider to much. Or add it selective!

    Ciao
    Anette

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    Maybe like this?

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    BPN Member Anette Mossbacher's Avatar
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    Aaaaah, there you go, this looks much better to me Timothy. Now try to get more contrast in the paw/hair

    Ciao
    Anette

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Timothy, it can be rather daunting at times to post in a new forum, however it would really help if you can add some text about the shot, why you shot what you did, what you were trying to achieve, the process/rational why you went B/W, Duo, colour etc, as this all helps to build the picture and makes it easier to be a bit more specific in 'our' replies, 'help us to help you'. Please critique this image, it's a little direct, albeit it a Critique Forum. Also if you could keep your © consistent and not to obvious also helps to avoid additional distractions within the image, however I fully understand that in this day & age we do need to do something to avoid illegal copying.

    Going larger in image size does help to view the image and offer better feedback by memebers. Firstly is this a large crop, or basically FF as IQ is lacking? I think the OP had some nice toning, but lack contrast to give form and shape to the paw. The second RP was just too contrasty, with both the black and shadow areas choked in parts. The last RP is better, but you could go a bit more on the darks & shadows, likewise dropping the highlights, adjusting the exposure in key areas will help and bring our more detail within the actual fur/paw. The background paw is a little distracting IMHO and so I would darken that area, likewise to the right & FG just to help separate the main object. Overall the image does not look sharp and so again, being selective with your sharpening here will help, plus adding some mid tone to the pads. Also a bit more shutter speed would help, perhaps something like 1/400 but you would need to up the ISO and I'm not sure how good the camera is with highish ISO's? I do however like the framing and angle of the paw.

    TFS
    Steve
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    BPN Member Morkel Erasmus's Avatar
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    Timothy, good to have you posting here. Much has been said already. I agree with most of what Steve pointed out above (let me know if you need clarifications on abbreviations used here).
    What was the idea behind the shot and eventual processing exactly?
    Morkel Erasmus

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Timothy - welcome to BPN and the Wildlife Forum! You've gotten good suggestions and questions above. I like the idea of a shot of a paw and have tried it myself on occasion but never really liked the results. I like that you are showing the pads of the paw and hope that you will apply some of the suggestions. BPN is a great place to grow and learn as a photographer. In my experience you get out of it what you put into it and the more you participate the more you learn.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Hi Steve and everyone else. Thank you so much for the feedback, it has already helped me understand and better this image.

    I tend to try and capture unique aspects of animals rather then the plain full animal and was focussing on the paw just as he started stretching his toes and thought it was quite a unique image. ISO 800 is a little noisey so I try not to shoot that High if I can avoid it but him being in the shade forced me to drop my shutter speed. I was shooting off a beandag on a car door so I was hoping it would be quite sharp.

    I have a fascination with monchrome images and tend to convert a lot of my images into black and white or sepia tone them (something I have tried to stop doing as much) but feel this image was a lot more powerful in black and white, but felt the striaght black and white was a little to harsh and therefore sepia toned it just to soften the feel of the image.

    I is a large crop from portrait to landscape.

    I only recently changed my copyright, so all the images I will be posting now will have the second watermark rather then the plain and simply one in the first post.

    Thank you for the advice, I a going to have a look at the original image and try to put the suggestion into place and see what results I get :) thank you all for the help

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Attached Images Attached Images
     
    Tim, going B/W or toning an image can really bring it to life and can be far more dramatic, powerful, and have greater impact rather than colour at times, however you have to think in a different way, with tones/shades, of colour. Irrespective of the colour, the original needs to be of high enough quality and sharp, otherwise no matter how skilled you are as a 'Harry Potter' wizard in LR/PS the image will still look poor. Avoid heavy crops, distracting or bright highlights in the BKG emphasised more in B/W IMHO, but to capture the images you want, you may be limited with the fact you really can't go too high on your ISO settings for additiomnal noise it provides. Having a good image to start with is key, well exposed & sharp, if it's not bin and move on. Sounds tough, but you cannot retrieve what isn't there.

    Tim this was taken from your last RP and very quickly done, not great or a good example of what can be achieved, but hopefully illustrates what I mean about needing Contrast, but don't use that slider, you can create it far better with other routes which avoids choking the blacks. Peter Delaney is a good example of how B/W can be used to great effect, or indeed Morkel.

    Look forward to more and your contributions to the Forums, cheers.

    Steve

    PS You set me thinking with this image, will look at something when I get back next week.
    Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

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    Thank you so much steve, I am going to carry on looking at the images and try my best to get a superb result :) thank you

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    Perhaps this could be better?


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