I realize a common mallard isn't the most exciting subject for an avian photo, but I liked the water, the reflection and the iridescent head, so I decided to practice my LR skills on it, and post it. I first moved it into PS to dodge the eye (haven't figured that out yet in LR). I tried to clone the whites in the upper left corner but it looked unnatural so I left them as is and moved it back to LR< where I increased clarity and reduced blacks a bit, and resized / sharpened it in the Export mode. I didn't think it was sharp enough so I moved it back into PS and used Unsharp Mask to sharpen it a bit more. C&C welcome.
Hi Wendy,
I had pretty much the same set-up as you with camera and lens/converter. For me a little lower vantage point would look better, but I understand you liked the reflection. Also the lights in the UL corner are a little distracting although I love the swirls of the water. Other than sharpening in LR when you do the export, do you sharpen there? You should try sharpening and NR in LR. I used to bring all my images into PS but now I'm finding I can do more and more in LR alone. BTW, there is an adjustment brush in LR which can act like a dodge tool as well - you would paint the area you wish to affect and then dial in some exposure or clarity or saturation or whatever. Also you should try adjusting the highlights/shadows sliders and play with them a bit to see how it affects the blacks, rather than just using the black slider. Good job.
Kevin
I like the water too! And good detail on a mallard head -- not an easy subject.
Rule #1 -- do all you can in LR THEN go to PS for the things you can't do, but don't go back from PS to LR -- get it right or start over. The LR adjustments are much better done on the true RAW file, not on a rasterized PS file brought back to LR. That's the big gotcha they don't tell you about from PS CC's Camera Raw Filter -- it's just taking a PS rasterized file back to the adjustment sliders of ACR -- not going back to a real RAW file.
You say you "first" moved it into PS -- but the FIRST thing is to use the LR sliders to do as much as you can -- which is a LOT. Don't rely on Auto anything! You can do better!!
Go back to the RAW file and see what you can do with the sliders in the Develop module -- and NOT the quick develop junk.
I do agree that for local adjustments like the eye, PS is generally better, but LR is good for simple shapes.
I p0erfer to sharpen in PS after I resize for export, but the LR export sharpening also works very well, for me. I also do NR in PS -- Nik's Dfine or Neat Image are wonderful.
I'd just crop the bright area in the UL, and include more image on the bottom if you have it. It's a bit crowded there.
Thanks, Kevin and Diane. I started over from my RAW file in LR, and used the highlights and shadows sliders as Kevin suggested. I also increased Clarity a bit. I think this process brought out more color variation in the head, which I like. Then I moved it into PS, cropped it, and tried cloning it again...let me know what you think about that outcome. Saved it as a jpeg, then saved it for the web. Reopened the saved-the-web version and sharpened it. Let me know what you think about both the image and the workflow. By the way, I did all of the PS processing using layers on my tiff stack, but it was not intuitive for me...I added a crop layer...that was fine...then added a clone layer on top of the crop layer, but when I tried to clone when that layer was selected nothing happened. So I selected the crop layer and cloned on that. I've read your tutorial on layers, Diane, but I think I need to read it again!
Hi Wendy! Your RP on the Mallard really did bring out the beautiful color, iridescence and detail! Great job! I LOVE the swirls in the water and rather surreal feel to it! Not sure about the lime green? Or (looking at it for the hundreth time...) maybe just a bit too bright on the water highlights? The Mallard does pop very well tho! I would also give it just a bit of CW rotation, so the reflected eye lines up with the real eye a bit more. Agree with Diane's suggestion on crop.