@ Bedinkt

[Andre Pretorius]

Hi Everyone!

I have not processed or posted an image for more than 3 months?! I have almost completely forgotten how to drive LR and CS6!

I decided to work on a big male leopard that we found on our last full day in the park, when I got on BPN, saw you wanted head shots for March...

There are some hot spots on chin and chest, tried to lessen the effect and not to turn into grays. Please feel free to see if you can redo image. Histogram showed no blown highlights.

Here are techs:

D3S with 300f2.8
1/2000 @ 5,6
ISO 640
Centre weighted metering with +03EV ( majority of images were captured with this metering mode, Andreas ETTR and Steve's influence)

[keith mitchell]

To my inexperienced eye it looks like you where working in strong light, looks like a bit of a loss of detail on the throat, after saying this I'm not sure I would have noticed if it was not for your self critique ,must be great to photograph these magnificent animals.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Welcome back Andre - I am so jealous (I am still leopardless in KTP!!)
Is this the BIG male, called !Nxau, who is about as big as a lioness? He's been seen anywhere between Grootkolk and Polentswa, and has even killed 2 wildebeest in 2 days middle December.

I felt it looked too light and needed some midtone contrast and shadow contrast - without losing detail in the shaded area.
In the RP I went darker via luminosity maskes for the hot whites, and then also darker via a midtone adjustment in "levels" and a midtone contrast adjustment using S/H slider.
I also went for a richer feel to enhance the sidelight. WDYT?

[Nancy Bell]

Magnificent animal! Strong light and shadow is tough. And I have found, as you did, that the whites can easily turn grayish, as that spot along the neck shows. I would try along the lines that Morkel posted, but maybe not as strong.

[Rachel Hollander]

oHi Andre - Welcome back! You and Gabriela have been missed but I am excited to see your images from your trip so get processing . Always exciting to see a leopard and he looks big. I like the balance of the leopard on one side and the bush on the other. The strong light is always difficult and Morkel has given you a good direction to go. Looking forward to more.

TFS and participating in this month's theme,
Rachel

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Andre,
welcome back and fire some of your stuff just taken in to the forum.
Hope you had great and fruitful time.
A nice but difficult starter, think you handled the lightning quite nice.Good suggestion by Morkel and a nice RP to show direction where to bring this image , but watch ,as yourself said ,for greyed out recovered HL.
Looks like he is a very big and powerful guy, and in good condition.
TFS Andreas

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Keith, Morkel, Nancy and Rachel; good to be back!

This male was on a bank that was higher than my position, this made him look even bigger. I have seen bigger males and seen evidence of Red Hartebeest skulls in a fork of a Kameeldoring tree- immense power
required to hoist an animal weighing around 150kg up the tree. Scenes like that left me in awe of the raw power. This boy did unfortunately was not in that class, but he still demanded a lot of respect.

Morkel, did you use TK's masks? I lifted the shadows maybe bit too much, trying to get detail in blacks. Like the mid tone detail, that is always evading me

Andre.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andre, I like the soft colours of the BKG and you delt with the harsh light well. I would try to selectively pull back some more detail back in the whites, not much, just a hint, but the whites in the chest are my main concern, I just wonder if 0 rather than +0.3 may have been better? I prefer Evaluated rather than centre, which I thought Gabriela was changing too, but perhaps you left it?

Again on the laptop, so... I feel the OP is too cold, a bit too much blue, just selectively adjust the areas mentioned and bringing in a bit of depth via the exp to the BKG, as I feel is all that is needed. Difficult to tell, but the face in Morkels is a tad dark, plus around the eye looks like more blue coming in, just keep the adjs light. I also think you can afford a little sliver off the top. If it was me, I would also lose the dark leave on the RH edge, but that's me. Not sure if the attached RP helps, but hopefully illustrates my points?

TFS
Steve

[Andre Pretorius]

Went back to psd-file, worked with shadows and highlights, and increasing mid tone contrast. Desat blues, Adjusted exposure on BG, cropped a bit on top, removed pod on RHS.

WDYT?

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Andre - the whites in the chest look better in your last rp but something seems off in the shadow area on the neck and shoulder. It looks more recovered and crunchy and also seems to have introduced some noise there.

Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

I agree with Rachel here Andre, I feel the crunchy look is down to where you introduced mid tone contrast, it looks basically 'contrasty' because of the blacks. Also S/H, was this in the RAW file or in PS as it's a very powerful tool in PS and needs to used with respect. Personally I would revisit the RAW and work from there as a new image based on the feedback, as perhaps there are some adjustments within the PSD file that could also be adding some unwanted additions? If I was back I would be happy to take a look at the RAW and add some pointers, but I won't be back till the mid end of next week.

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Rachel and Steve, it will then be until next week. Steve will send you link to dropbox, thank you very much.


Regards

Andre

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Andre, OK just back and before jet lag kicks in I thought I would take a look.

The original raw looks good, with sharpness & clarity. Only a few dust bunnies, but minor, LOL. Once you get the profile right i.e. change from Standard to Neutral, everything falls into place, as I managed to get an almost 50, 50, 50 mid grey on the nose so a good starting point. How you then address things is then down to personal taste. Blacks were clipped marginally,fractional, so no worries on that score. The RAW is a huge improvement from the early days and so addressing the issues we discussed has certainly paid off IMHO.

Having the exported it, I just tweaked the blue for the sky, then added a 40 luminosity layer applied to everything bar the sky. Cropped and sharpened, your call now. Will send you ack the Tiff.

Hope this helps.

Steve

[Andre Pretorius]

Herewith my minimalistic RP as guided by Steve.

Should I have gone for a wider crop?

WDYT?

[Steve Kaluski]

Andre, the crop is a personal choice, however what are your thoughts to the look, did you get the revised Tiff?

Steve

[Andre Pretorius]

Thank you Steve, still have it open in the Dock. Maximise/Minimise while working, but can't copy the Master exactly...

[Steve Kaluski]

but can't copy the Master exactly...

You need to put 'YOUR' spin on it.

[Andreas Liedmann]

hi Andre forget about copying the Master,
her is my take from the raw you send me.

Cheers Andreas