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Hi Sandy, I would crop about half an inch off the top to give a cleaner trim to the edge as there is still enough space between subject & trim. Having the juvenile with beak open is a nice touch and adds interest to the image, but the subject is not sharp. You need to apply sharpening to both the subject and the shoreline. Likewise, if you have blurred or used NR on the BKG to diffuse it, I would certainly ease off, at ISO 800 it should be good and require little if any NR. I like the crop and nice amount of river to set the scene/location.
TFS
Steve
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Hi Sandy, the bird does look a bit soft where you some distance from the bird? agree with Steve re the crop but I do like the amount of the river you have in the image.
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Thanks much Steve and Keith for your comments!
Steve... you are right on... I'm pretty new at the PP thing and did run NR in Raw... and some bkgd blur in PSE11. Question: the shoreline would be better if it was sharper?
Keith, really appreciate your kind comments... yes, I was somewhat of a distance (probably a 35-40% crop).... here in the "up-north outback", birds seldom see people (or people in boats!) so they are pretty skittish...was as close as I could get without upsetting him.
Would like to give it another "go" in PP... would be great if you folks could stop by in a couple days to let me know if there is any improvement. Thanks again!
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I'm on my laptop and rushed for time (traveling) but if an image isn't in sharp focus, there is no good way to sharpen it. So-called sharpening is only effective at a very small level of detail, in LR, PS or any plug-in. View it at 100% (1:1) and if it isn't improved enough by a small tweak, you're not going to be able to do much with it.
I think it might be effective to blur the FG here, but not sure of it can be done with a good look.
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Wildlife Moderator
Steve... you are right on... I'm pretty new at the PP thing and did run NR in Raw... and some bkgd blur in PSE11. Question: the shoreline would be better if it was sharper?
Hi Sandy, I would look at two versions and easy to do:
- Apply NO blurring at all to the image and only sharpen the bird and the 'mud' shoreline, you can be less specific on the shoreline.
- As above but with say 30-50% of the blur you applied in the OP, but only apply this to the BKG
Be interesting to see the two versions as comparisons
Would like to give it another "go" in PP... would be great if you folks could stop by in a couple days to let me know if there is any improvement. Thanks again!
Yep, no worries
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Thank you so much, Steve! REALLY appreciate your help/instructions!
(I own a small signage company and just nailed a big order for Verizon... so it may take a couple of days before I get back to the image.)
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Avian Moderator
Sandy:
Good comments above. I really like his pose. I have found the juvi GBHs to me sig. more cooperative in Mich. than the adults.
The overall image does look soft, so try what Steve mentioned to see if it is post processing, or missed focus issues.
Cheers
Randy
MY BPN ALBUMS
"Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy" Sir Isaac Newton
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Thanks, Randy! I will try to repost.... this youngster was indeed fairly accommodating. He/she provided a wonderful assortment of poses. The more I look at this one, the more I think folks will think he's scared (I never scare birds) ... so I'm not going to do a lot here... was experimenting with dif Aperurtures's... do have a nice wing spread I may post. Thanks again.
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Hi Sandy, compared to the OP it is certainly an improvement and a move in the right direction. Looking at the OP I would have expected more from the RP, plus it's smaller, so as a comparison it's a little hard to judge. Personally I would have left the crop as per the original as the subject seems to sit better within frame. Did you start from scratch again or rework the OP? Unless you have created the Mater file with layer adjustments the IQ will degrade, plus it looks a little contrasty. At 1/2500 this should be sharp & with more detail based on a DOF f/7.1, can I assume the focus point was on the head? ISO800 is not that high for modern cameras, however I have no idea how this particular body performs at highish ISO, but I personally can live with a bit of grain in the image. Herons can be funny old things, they either fly as soon as you get with 50m or allow you to get quite close. If this heron is a constant feature then I might suggest try using a tripod or bean bag on you camera bag for support and a 1.4 extender. If he/she accepts you, just every now and then move forward, but very slowly and if the bird looks like it might be starting to get spooked back off, but certainly stop! You will then have a bit more reach and hopefully avoid cropping which is the killer in any image, as you just throw valuable information away.
Good luck.
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.
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Thanks, Steve... will certainly work on your suggestions... that's why I'm here!
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I'm back from traveling and on a calibrated monitor now that confirms a bit of a red cast I thought I saw on my laptop. Try a Color Balance adjustment layer and pull the reds down a little and see what you think. (Monitors are different, as are our perceptions and preferences.)
Also a clarification about sharpening -- it can be an effective tool for the small JPEGs we export for web display, but only works at a very fine detail level for a full-scale file. It works by creating artifacts that can degrade an image when it is resized for output, so needs to be used with caution on a master file.
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Sandy you have had a lot of great advice that I must say I have also taken on board, I find that a simple way to tone down messy BG is to select the bird then take most of the contrast out of the BG sorry if this sounds a bit basic I'm sure you will have done this sort of thing.
Keith.
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Hi Diane, Steve and Keith.... thanks much! I never sharpen in the Raw stage... just do a straighten, crop, perhaps EC, check histogram and test the sliders. I also stay away from "saturation".
I won't clutter up the thread with another re-post, but I'm pretty sure I did another sharpen AFTER the "Save for Web" ... probably not the best idea....(since it forced me to save it again...sigh.)
Diane, I will check the color (although I'm ignorant of how to manage layers yet).
And, Keith...I've just discovered how to work the "selection" (select, then invert for bg)... SO.... not basic... for ME anyway! Thanks!
Really appreciate the time you all have taken to review, comment and provide very valuable advice!
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I need to get a basic Layers tutorial up.
Most things are best done in the RAW stage, and there, if using PS, you could go to the HSL panel and look at color adjustment. But it's often simpler to do tweaks on the PS file, and not really harmful if they are minor. Try this: on the top menu bar go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. (That's the simplest and most intuitive, although you can do the same thing with Hue-Sat or Selective Color.) Look at the Layers panel and you'll see the new adjustment layer you just made. You can click that adjustment any time and tweak it further. The layer will be saved with your file.
Elements and other editors should also be able to do this but the menus will be different.
If anybody ever tells you to flatten your master file, don't listen to them. (There are a few special cases where you might do that, but not in general.)
You can do almost everything in layers, instead of gluing changes into the BG or a copy of it. Then everything remains editable. As you add more layers, you might want to tweak some earlier adjustments.
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Thanks Diane... Flattening (or merging) layers basically eliminates the ability to edit individual layers ... kinda makes you wonder why you would go thru the process of creating layers, when this would "un-do" your work!
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It's some of the worst advice you'll ever get (flattening when you're "done.") You want the paint to stay wet.
Several years ago there was a book by a noted PS "guru" that gave a large number of examples of things you can do, and not just after the image was done but after virtually every step was the admonition, "OK, now flatten your image!"
Hard to believe.
Maybe one in 100 images I'll merge 2 pixel layers, in order to do some cloning that was too much trouble on the separate layers.
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Sandy Witvoet thanked for this post
You can also apply a 'pre-sharpen' when exporting the file from your RAW converter to Photoshop, however we all have different workflows and practices.
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