Image of a Golden Eagle taken from a rented hide in the northern parts of Sweden (outside Skellefteċ - http://www.connylundstrom.com/en). Heavy overcast sky so the conditions were a bit problematic as can be seen from the EXIF data. It w as my first real outing with my new D800 and I have to admit that I was very impressed (comparing with my old D300).
The image has been cropped from horisontal to vertical and the beak has been cleaned up from remaining food. The image has been scaled down from 3650x4900 directly by using Lightrooms export function with "standard" sharpening in the process - I am not to sure if this a reasonable way of performing the down scaling (it now looks a bit oversharpened to me ?!?)or if one should use Photoshop (in one or several steps).
Nikon D800, 500 mm ISO 3200 f/5.6 1/100.
Any comments on how to improve the image welcome.
/Svante
PS! It's been a while since I posted so I hope this post is OK !!!
Last edited by John Chardine; 11-01-2013 at 09:58 AM.
Reason: removed light text colour for readability
A wonderful catch in the wild! For me, the contrast is on the low side, which further emphasizes the dominance of the OOF portions.
I did an Auto Curves (PS CS 6) on the entire image and then did a quick mask with a large soft-edged brush on the OOF body and let that selection create a mask on a Curves layer, and darkened the area a little.
The extra space on top is excellent for a magaine cover, but for a presentation of the subject on the web, I'd crop some off the top. I've used an alternate crop, removing some of the OOF area on the right. I also took some off the bottom but not sure that's very important.
I also did a tweak in Color Balance, moving a little away from blue and adding a very slight amount of red.
This is beautiful Svante. The eye is very "catching". I very much like Diane's crop and other enhancements- subtle but effective. Sharpening during Export in Lr works well, and I don't think this is over sharpened. However, the problem is that sharpening is applied to the whole image, which tends to make the noise in underexposed areas more visible- I can see some here in the BG. Perhaps a better approach in Lr might be to apply sharpening to the subject with the adjustment brush during development and then turn off sharpening in Export. In Lr you can also apply sharpening to the whole image and apply an edge mask, which would not sharpen smooth areas like the BG. I am only throwing this out as an idea because I have not tested this to see if it is as effective.
Hello Svante,the sharpness looks ok to me and I love the birds eye if I am nit picking the image does look a bit washed out maybe a tad overexposed but that could be down to my monitor see what others think. It must have been great photographing these magnificent birds and getting great image.
Diane: Thanks for spending the time on improving the PP - I really liked your changes !!!
John: I think your comment on the noise being amplified by LR's sharpening is accurate and I believe it also shows that it shouldn't be used in such a way. I took the image from a height of 4900 pixel to 900 pixels and I believe this should basically remove most noise by averaging a bit over five pixels down to one rather than amplifying it (even if you sharpen the whole picture as LR exporting does). I don't believe one can turn off sharpening at export because lowering the pixel count will make the image look unsharp.
Thanks all for your comments - I might be back with some more images from my three days in the hide. It was really exciting - last evening there was also a white-tailed eagle but the light conditions was fairly difficult and I haven't processed it yet so I am not sure if my images were any good;-).
Hi Svante- There's a checkbox next to Output sharpening in Lr5 which lets you turn it on and off. As far as I understand it the sharpening routines in Lr are pretty sophisticated and comes directly from Jeff Schewe's (and other's) Photokit Sharpener, which is still available as a stand-alone package.
A very beautiful and catching portrait of the eagle. I agree with comments above, but like your OP crop better. Interesting discussion on LR:s sharpening. I would try smoothing the background with selectively noice reduction and less clarity.
I really like the the detail in the Eagles eye and think this is a fantastic image. Your so lucky being able to get so close the these birds.
I agree with the comments already made and think Diane's crop brings the focus more on the birds head.
Golden Eagle
