Duck family portrait

[Tyler Hartje]

"Duck family portrait." I took this photo this morning, and after days of trying to photograph them under the harsh sunlight while they move around so quickly, I finally managed to get them resting and in better light. This was a special moment, with the ducklings napping together and the mother watching over them, and is a concept I have been trying to capture for a while now. I was so excited to have finally captured this! Comments and advice are welcome and appreciated!

Photo details:
Canon 60d, 400 f5.6 lens.
1/400 sec, f5.6, iso 800, +1/3 stop exp, tripod mounted.
Minor editing (white balance, exposure, sharpening, cropping, re-sizing) done in Canon DPP.
Watermarked in MS Paint.

[Doug West]

You did a fine job in capturing the moment. I love how the ducklings are
all huddled together.

You mentioned you used a tripod, but the image still looks soft to me. Might
want to try just a tad more sharpening.

I would also crop from just below the ducklings heads since that reflection can
be seen. The adult duck's reflection is broken up and all it does is distract from
your main subject.

So it looks like the crop would come just above that green leaf that's sticking up.
That would leave a little reflection of the adult and the whole reflection of the ducklings.

Doug

[Tyler Hartje]

Thanks so much Doug! I rotated the image just a little to crop below the ducklings, and above the leaf. It looks so much better without that leaf now. I also added some sharpening, and resized it again (I think my original resizing made the image less sharp).

Tyler

[Diane Miller]

A nice moment captured! The leaf didn't help the image -- with enough trial and error we learn, always the hard way, to notice things like that when shooting. That's the best fix. The crop here to remove it is awfully tight. If you had seen it and had the option to move a few inches (which I realize you might not have) you would have a stronger image.

It is always good to work on getting the focus perfect, with a single focus point on the subject's eye, and any secondary subjects in the focal plane, if possible.

You say you re-sized it in DPP? Maybe you mean when you saved the TIFF? I would always recommend to keep the native size (cropping is fine, and a different matter) and only resize an exported JPEG. You will lose quality and sharpness when you resize -- sometimes only to a small amount, sometimes noticeably.

[Tyler Hartje]

Thanks Diane! By re-sizing I meant that when I saved it as a JPEG (from the original RAW file) I had the option to resize at the same time. I have also noticed though that sometimes my JPEG conversions are also changing some of the colors (but I didn't notice the color change in this photo). I will investigate the settings later this week, and am definitely looking at getting lightroom 5.

[Diane Miller]

I also resize as needed when I export a JPEG. I find it easy and of excellent quality to let the computer do it all in one step.

I've seen several people lately say that JPEG conversion changed colors. It shouldn't. There will be a very slight change due to the lower gamut, but it shouldn't be noticeable except to the most discerning inspection.

A wide-gamut monitor (Adobe RGB gamut instead of sRGB) can possibly cause issues -- too complex to get into here. Maybe others can chime in on it. You want color management set up correctly so PS will warn you of profile mismatches and exports from the raw processor need to be in the same color space as PS. Adobe RGB is the most general for a variety of uses, with Conversion (NOT Assignment) to the PS space and to sRGB for JPEGs for the web.

LR5 is wonderful for conversion and managing images. I have several tutorials on my web site that give some of the basics of how LR works.

Look forward to your journey. We're all on the same one!

[Edward Arthur]

I really like this. Great poses and compo. Textures are wonderful.

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

I've seen several people lately say that JPEG conversion changed colors. It shouldn't.

FWIW: I also thought that LR affected colors during the conversion-to-jpg process until I realised what happens: the colors in LR/PS, Windows Photo Viewer and the various browsers are hardly ever identical. I got frustrated a few times after posting a 'perfectly-colored' pic in a BPN thread, just to find that it's off-color when it displays in the browser for the first time. I've now developed the habbit of first opening my .jpg's directly in one of the browsers immediately after creating them so that I can quickly make the necessary color related changes in LR and re-export to .jpg if needed.

Displaying correctly in the browser is the most important of all the display media as that is how the viewers (who will be 'critiqueing' it) will see it. Pics look very similar in I.E and Firefox so that make things easier - not too sure of other browsers.

[Diane Miller]

Good sleuthing, Tobie! It actually never occurred to me that people might be comparing the appearance of an exported JPEG in a non-color-managed app. I'm told that the Windows Viewer is in that category. (As a Mac user I'm spoiled, as even my basic system-level JPEG viewer is color managed and shows the same appearance as PS, Bridge and LR.

If people open the JPEG in PS, they will see the correct appearance, but there is no need to as it will be the same as the original file they exported, assuming it is also viewed in PS. The state of color management is still rather sad. And it is variable with different browsers, too. And you have no control over what anyone else will see when you post on the web.

See the sticky at the top of this forum, "Seeing Images Properly" for more information.

[Tyler Hartje]

Thanks so much Edward. Tobie - I never knew that, I thought colors were the same across programs, thanks for the information. I noticed the color shift between DPP and windows photo viewer, so that probably explains the differences in color. Diane, I will have to check out that thread. Thanks everyone!

Tyler