Northern Pygmy Owl with Lizard

[Bryan Munn]

This image is actually a scan of a Velvia slide photo that I made approximately 20 years ago. It was scanned with a Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED. Photo details are Nikon F4, 500mm F4, 13mm extension tube, 1/15 @ F8.

I had largely forgotten this image because in its original form it was plagued by extremely high contrast lighting. It was one of those scenes where dappled sunlight was streaming through in a very dense woodland environment. The branches in the background were in pretty much direct sunlight, and washed out so badly that it seriously distracted from the image of the owl. Because of this I had filed the image away and largely forgotten it.

But on advice from the forum (thanks Diane!) I purchased LR and started trying to figure out how to use it. Since this is an ancient film image, I am primarily looking for suggestions on my LR work.

Basically what I did was make a slight crop to remove some distracting background elements, then went to work with the adjustment brush trying to lower the contrast on the washed out branches still visible in the background. I also used the "undo" command a lot as I kept screwing things up. I did not want to darken the bird at all, but as I was trying to avoid that with the adjustment brush I kept winding up with a bright "halo" around the back outline of the bird that really looked....fake. Ultimately I kept increasing the "feather" and allowed the brush to overlap slightly onto the perimeter of the bird. That looked better than the halo effect. The rest of it involved a lot of different passes taking out different levels of exposure as it kept winding up looking like someone had worked over the background with a dark felt pen.

I tried to completely remove a couple of the background branches with the spot removal tool....but it didn't really work. There are so many branches and so little "clean" background that I could not make it look right. Probably inexperience on my part with LR. I also decided that without the branches the background would look a little too clean and "manipulated".


Other than that, I slightly sharpened the image and slightly warmed the light as in original form it had a distinct blue tinge. The Velvia image already had pretty high color saturation....so I left the colors largely alone.

I would really appreciate any suggestions from the LR masters on the forum, as I more or less felt like a child wielding a sledgehammer during this effort.

Thanks!

[Diane Miller]

A nice legacy image, and for an old Velvia image this is a good re-interpretation. (Velvia in high-contrast lighting was a bit much!)

LR is at its best for working with RAW files. With a scan, as with an in-camera JPEG, you have a glued-in starting point for dark and light tones. You can make them a little better, but not as much as with a RAW file.

In this case you might have brought down the saturation a bit more. Lowering contrast indirectly with the Shadows and Highlights sliders may be enough to reduce it.

The repair work you describe is excellent for having been done in LR. But most of what you describe is much better done in Photoshop, even Elements if you don't have the full-blown version. There you can work on layers and use masking to refine adjustments. You could also more easily tone down the magenta cast in the gray branches in PS. Selective Color would probably do it without masking. In fact you can probably do that in LR with the HSL panel sliders. And in PS you could clone out the branch intruding in the upper left.

Welcome to the first steps in an exciting journey! I hope you'll find the possibilities as exciting as I (and many others here) do!

[Sandy Witvoet]

AWESOME work, Bryan! I am not familiar with all that you have done here.... but I love the subject, comp and STARE! The purple/magenta branches (and on owl's and lizard's tails) should be taken back a bit.... as well as the greenish tone on the Owls' underside. I really like how the Owl's face and the lizard are in great focus... and the feathers on the body are somewhat subdued.

[Bryan Munn]

After you both mentioned it, I tried taking out the magenta tint in the background. I also dialed down the saturation about 10 points. Does this look any better?

Diane...I do plan on getting PS at some point soon, but frankly I am a bit intimidated about learning you use it. I recently did an online course to learn (to some extent) Illustrator, and I found it very difficult and non-intuitive. At least LR was easy to learn to use.

Do you know of a good online tutorial for PS?

Thanks for the input!

[Diane Miller]

Yes -- much better!

I've been using PS for so long I haven't kept up with tutorials. I have a number of tutorials on my web site but they don't go from A to Z. I just put a Layers tutorial in the Stickies at the top of this page. It gives some basic information. PS for the digital darkroom isn't hard. But one caution -- you will see a lot of very dated information and techniques everywhere. Read a lot and you'll start learning to sort out bad info. Sort of like saying jump in the ocean and you'll learn to swim....

[Asta Tobiassen]

I really like this image. What an intense "life and death" moment. Did the bird take off with the prey, or did you get a chance to continue to observe him? The repost looks a lot better with the toned down magenta and slight decrease in saturation.
I have been using LR for years, and have also been intimidated by PS (both because of price and the complexity of the program). I have recently signed up for a monthly subscription to PS via Abode, so the price is a virtual non-issue, for now. I have also purchased Glenn Bartley's e-book on post-processing with PS: http://glennbartley.com/PostProcessingEbook.html. He presents the workflow in a very clear manner, and it is directed to bird/nature photographers, which I think is more helpful than instruction for general photography, that most others offer. He also uses an effective combination of written text and video tutorials. Good Luck!

[Diane Miller]

Asta, thanks for the recommendation! I'm going to start a list of good material for PS, PS Elements and LR and when I get a few I'll make a sticky at the top of the ETL forum. If anyone else has recommendations let me know.

[Bryan Munn]

I really like this image. What an intense "life and death" moment. Did the bird take off with the prey, or did you get a chance to continue to observe him?

I watched him for a while. He got my attention as I was walking through the woods because it sounded like a baseball had landed on the forest floor and rolled through the leaves. That was the owl pouncing on a lizard. I saw him on the ground struggling with the lizard, then he flew up onto the branch and started eating.

The thing with Pygmy Owls, they are difficult to find but once located they are fearless and very approachable. I got a lot of photos of this guy with the lizard, from different angles. The lighting was so difficult though that most of the photos were terrible....including this one without the digital alterations.

Thanks for the kind words, and for the recommendations. I know I have PS in my future, I just really dread entering the learning phase. A good tutorial is what I need.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Love the RP! When you capture incredible images like this... I see no reason to get into much PP. Superb!

[Steve Kaluski]

I would really appreciate any suggestions from the LR masters on the forum, as I more or less felt like a child wielding a sledgehammer during this effort.

Hi Bryan the tutorials that Adobe host are good and they take you easily through a step by step guide. The architecture for both LR & PS is set in such a way that if you follow the Modules you will easily find you way and build a simple workflow. You may wish to consider the bundle package that they do now for a set fee per month, however if you leave then you do not own the software, that's the catch, however you will always get the free upgrades and once you start using the software you tend to be locked in because you will constantly use it. There is certainly a lot to learn, but in all honesty you will invariably only use a small % of the full capacity of say PS. Yes it is daunting and when I started with PS at the start of the 90's there was no web bar, video tutorials etc, only a manual that was a dull as ditchwater and thicker than 'War & Peace'.

Velvia was/is a cracking transparency film that blew most images away with it's vibrant colour/depth, but with the digital age you can do so much more, but the skill in doing the most 'in camera' still remains. Don't try to run, just take small bites and practice.

Good luck.
Steve

[Diane Miller]

Bryan, sounds like you're asking about LR also. There are basically 2 parts to it -- organization (similar to Bridge but much more powerful) and RAW conversion (same engine as Adobe Camera Raw but slicker interface). It is really important to understand how the whole thing (the organizational part) is structured before you start doing things wrong that are hard to undo.

There are several tutorials on my web site that attempt to explain the structure -- they are from LR3 but still completely relevant. The two middle ones will be the most useful for overview.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012627/a...be-Lightroom-3

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012766/a...troom-3-Part-2

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0012808/a...troom-3-Part-3

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0013613/a...troom-4-Review

Just today, Tim Grey's email stresses how many photographer's don't understand that their pictures are not IN Lightroom -- they are cataloged by it. They are IN your computer, just where you put them. (Just like the book in the library are not IN the card catalog.) I know a person who figured, OK, my pictures are in LR, I can save some disk space and delete them on my computer!!!! (After she had heard me caution otherwise several times.) She did. And she also hadn't listened to my frequent cautions about having a backup. Sigh....

[Bryan Munn]

Thanks for all the help, I sincerely appreciate it.

I have been messing with LR for a week or so now, and it seems fairly easy to learn. I certainly would not say I know "everything" about it, but I know enough to use it and gain more knowledge as I need it. The advice to photograph in RAW mode then import and edit in LR was invaluable. I am completely amazed how it is almost irrelevant now if a photo is slightly "off" on exposure....LR can instantly correct what would have been a fatal mistake with slide film. That is really liberating...and I suppose if one is not careful it can invite sloppy habits as well....

I know it's not funny....but I couldn't help chuckling at the poor photographer who deleted all their photos off the hard drive because they were saved in LR. Sounds like something I would do....in an attempt to keep things "orderly".

PS is my next challenge....I know it is a far more complex program than LR.

[Diane Miller]

But don't get too "sloppy" -- you'll soon find that bringing up underexposure will really bring out noise, even at ISO 100 on the best "low noise" cameras.

Sounds like you're a fast learner -- look forward to watching your progress and seeing your images!

[Randall Farhy]

Bryan, welcome back! The RP is well done, hard to believe it started out as a transparency. At first I thought this was taken in a captive environment, very nicely done! You will find a lot of leeway compared to the old slide films where we had 1/4 of a stop at most to work with, especially in terms of dynamic range. When I came back after 20+ years, the one concept I had trouble adjusting to was over-exposing slightly (ETTL) with digital (with slide film, under-exposing by a notch increased saturation) and grasping what the histogram is describing. Modern PP techniques also allow us to expose for highlights and recover (primarily white subjects). Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

[Bryan Munn]

Thanks Randy!

There is no doubt that the digital technology is really liberating....not just with exposure leeway but with the instant adjustable ISO as well. I am only now fully comprehending just how unforgiving slide film really was. I find myself actually moving "too slowly" now to set exposure. In the past I would always use manual and take middletoned spot readings and all that, just because with slide film everything depended on that. Now....I really should just set to aperture priority and fire away. I do not fully trust the camera to make the right decision in many instances....but in the digital world it will certainly be close enough most of the time.

My biggest dilemma is what to do with my thousands of slide images. I have scanned a few but that is a huge PITA and the results have been mixed. I have a lot of shots that took huge amounts of time and effort to get, and I am not sure what to do with them.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Not much to say after all the previous comments, so: 'Great photo'!