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Thread: Great Spotted Woodpecker

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    Default Great Spotted Woodpecker

    Name:  Större Hackspett_3.jpg
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    From the same session in a hide as the Golden Eagle below.

    Nikon D800, 500 mm at f/5.6, 1/250 and ISO3200.

    Any comments and suggestions for improvement welcome.

    /Svante

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Svante - it's a sweet image but there is a lot of detail that you can still recover from the whites and the lighter chest area. I used a luminosity mask in CS6 but there are other ways too. You can Google "Tony Kupyer luminosity mask" to get some tutorials but here's a simple version of instructions.

    In PS click on the "Channels" palette.

    Once the Channels are showing click on the top RGB Channel (which is actually all 3) while also pressing the "Ctrl" key. This will select the highlights.

    Make a duplicate layer and then in the "Layers" palette make a mask of the selected highlights.

    Still in the layers palette, go to the drop down menu which should say "normal." Select "multiply" in the drop down menu and then adjust the opacity of the layer to taste.

    Here's a rp of your image which I did the above at 80% opacity because I wanted to show you the difference. It would be better to recover the detail in the RAW prior to conversion and then to use a luminosity mask to just refine it.

    Shout if you have any questions,
    Rachel

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Hi Savante, just for the record I don't follow Rachel around but as you had views, but with no comments I thought I too would add my thoughts along with Rachel's to the image.

    Just a thought, but having shot these in Finland along with the Black woodpecker, I would try and find a nice Silver birch as your feeding station, as it compliments the subject and is different. I would also try it in the vertical position rather than the diagonal. If this is a regular, then when it starts to snow things can be very interesting and atmospheric.


    Firstly, is this a large crop and also have you 'lightened' the image as the blacks look a little thin, I also feel it's a little to saturated overall. Just adjusting the Temperature slightly I think brings back the colours a little more. Making some some simple exposure corrections in the RAW module balances out the blacks and whites of the chest. There is more detail you have I feel, it just needs to be 'teased' out a bit more, as the plumages is not quite pristine white. I have just had a female WP in the garden feeding, so I have a little comparison too. It's good to have the feet showing and the head clear of any distracting objects. I would also remove the small sprig at the foot of the log and apply some more sharpening to the subject just to bring a bit more definition out.

    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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    Hi Svante, must say when I looked at your original post I did think the whites looked like they lacked a bit of detail and it all looked a bit light after saying this I do like the pose of the bird. It's very interesting to see Steve and Rachel's take on it Steve as certainly got a lot more detail on the bird and it's perch but I do prefer the BG colour on Rachel's take. Great to get advice like this .

    Keith.

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    Thanks a lot for the luminosity layer explanation

    What parameters is CS using to determine what are the highlights?

    Is it any channel which is blown?

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    Shane, the newer versions of ACR in PS / LR that have the "Process 2012" sliders (I think CS 5 and LR 4, but am not good at remembering what pst versions were like) have significantly improved algorithms for adjusting highlights (Whites slider) and very light areas (Highlights slider) and conversely for Blacks and dark areas. They claim to have some sort of "edge awareness" which presumably gives them a little more selectivity than simple Curves adjustments.

    Often with Highlights you can recover some detail in an area that isn't actually blown on the histogram. Then some work in PS can go further, such as Nik's Detial Extractor or Tonal Contrast, or a combination. They are so powerful you have to be careful not to go too far.

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    Thanks a lot

    I think it must be a later version than CS5 as it is the version I have and its pretty outdated already

    Need to upgrade my processing tools as everything is struggling with my new D800 files.

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    BPN Member Sandy Witvoet's Avatar
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    Way cool woodpecker... I like Steve's RP.... There was too much orange in the bird, bg and perch on the prior posts. Reds look more natural too....BG is nicely subdued, highlighting the bird's lovely color combination.
    www.mibirdingnetwork.com .... A place for bird and nature lovers in the Great Lakes area.

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    Just checked, Process 2012 sliders were new in LR 4 and PS CS 6 (CRAW 7.x). Well worth the upgrade for that alone. (If you use LR for raw processing, no need to upgrade PS to match. You can still use its other functionalities. Could it be the computer that's struggling, with the D800's larger files? Every version of PS and LR claims to be faster, but I've never seen a dramatic difference.

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    Hello everyone

    Thanks for all your comments and it was interesting to see about the recovery of toasted whites. However, there shouldn't have been a need because the TIF-file which I used for the LR export did not contain any blown whites. I am not sure if this an issue always when transforming from TIF to JPG or if I am doing something wrong. In the TIF file there are no whites above 253. The TIF file is 3724 pixels high and when exporting in LR I set maximum lenght to 900 pixels and then asked for standard sharpening. I am not sure if this is causing the effect of the blown whites in the JPG or if it is standard that the JPG-file "amplifies" the whites slightly.

    With respect to Steves version I like it even if might be just a touch cold. With respect to the whites on the chest there were a couple of individuals going around the hide (both males) and one of them was almost brown and the other one almost white. Since the hide is around 800 km away I don't think I will go back to set up a silver birch - I was really there for the Golden Eagle and everything else was a bonus.

    Anyway, thanks to all for your comments and expertise !!!

    /Svante

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