6D with Zeiss 80-200mm + 2x TC @400mm
1/1000 f/5.6 ISO 500
HH panning and manual focus
Crop, a few standard tweaks in LR5 for highlights/shadows/blacks/whites, smart sharpening in CS, a little DeNoise and masked out the feet to reduce shadow a bit.
C&C most welcome so I can learn!
Hi Eduard, interesting shot-I like how the head and eye are still visible though lighting angle suggests this was shot in less than ideal conditions. To address the contrast and clipped blacks. I'd suggest raising exposure by about .5- .65 of a stop and pulling back on the contrast a bit. You will then need to reduce the highlights quite a bit (mostly to compensate for the increased exposure value) while still boosting shadows a little. As I'm tight on time, these are rough guesstimate suggestions for starters.
So here's a rework using LR5 adjustments, no masking or localized brush work. It's a starting point, so the image may appear a little flat. Working from the RAW would be better as this image has quite a bit of blue channel and saturation baked in.
LR5 adjustments to create a starting point: W/B- Temp (-5) Tint (+5)
Exposure (+.48)
Contrast (-12)
Highlights (-67) (goal is a white level value of 238-245ish using the colorpicker tool, measured on the top of the head)
Shadows (+19)
Whites (-14)
Blacks ( +17)
Clarity (0)
Vibrance (-5)
Saturation (-1)
HSL: Hues- Yellow (-2)
Saturation: Orange (+2) Yellow (+4) Green (-4) Aqua (-18) Blue (-31) magenta (-2)
Luminance: Blue (+4)
Removed C/A (via tool) and defringed Purple slider range 61-79 value (-2) (suggest using DPP to correct C/A)
I'll try to post a tweaked version later on but the schedule is tight so it may not be for a day or two. Hope this helps. (By no means do I consider this to be the only correct approach, other's may have an alternate method that might be simpler, or provide better results)
Last edited by Randall Farhy; 04-05-2014 at 02:26 PM.
Reason: Adjustment values
Edit: Too funny! We were posting at exactly the same time. . .
Thank you for the suggestions, Randall. Followed your recommendations and definitely improved the shot -- more pop and definition. Tweaks were +.6 exposure, -70 highlights, -25 contrast and I forgot how much I boosted shadows. Rear wing tip is still very black.
This is a great pose which I really like and your exposure looks good. i feel the image has been over sharpened. The sharpening also looks like it has been applied to the whole image it is better to try and mask the sharpening to just the bird.
I think if you get the sharpening right you will have a good image.
Nice catch -- and with manual focus -- impressive! You have a strange color to the water. Some hue and sat work on the blues should fix it, as in Randall's RP. Is this a large crop? It would be more pleasing for my tastes with a little more room in the frame. And if I had the room I'd try some CCW rotation to level the waves in the lower part of the frame.
Hi Edward- Your RP is headed in the right direction! Agree with Iain re: sharps and Diane re: Greens. In reworking this-the green and aqua channel required extra attention, I just wasn't able to rid the water of the cast with a global approach. If you can't remove the cast via the RAW, my recommendation would be to mask the water with extra care around the bird to address these color shifts, and also to apply BG NR. Here's a rework from the prior version (no mask on water). I'll post the value changes from above as an edit.
Thank you for the valuable feedback, everyone. Iain, masking off the bird for sharpening is a much better idea. Diane, this particular lens line favors the blue/green frequencies and when coupled with Canon really enhances it -- I've seen it so much I guess I've become blind to it -- and a fuller crop with some extra canvas for the bird to fly into would really work better. Randall, I especially appreciate your time and effort to demonstrate and share how you improved this image. I'll re-work the shot from raw and RP soon.
Ring-Billed Gull Landing
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