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Lifetime Member
Hi Willie - Welcome to the Wildlife Forum! You've posted an image of a species we certainly haven't seen very often. Shooting from the boat also put you at eye level so a nice pov. Looks like the light was somewhat harsh and that you could tame the highlights or more either in the conversion or with a luminosity mask. I do think the large crop has hurt the IQ a bit. I also wonder if there was an alternate crop that would have allowed you to move the mink out of the center of the frame. Perhaps post the full frame image and we can give you some alternate ideas. Btw you can post images that are 1200px wide if landscape format or 900px high if portrait format.
Thanks for commenting on other images. It's the best way to learn and to get the most out of BPN. Also, the Eager to Learn Forum is not just for avian images. You can post images there that you want a little more help with that are appropriate for any of the various BPN forums such as Wildlife, Macro, Landscapes, OOTB or Avian. I'm not saying that you should have posted this image there, just wanted to clear up that ETL is not just for bird images.
TFS,
Rachel
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Hi Willie
Good that you post, and it is nice to see a picture of a mink. I saw one outside our house a few days ago, but it slipped away as usual very fast.
Techwise I agree with Rachel.
TFS, Gregor
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Forum Participant
Agree with the above. I think that this could be a really nice image without having to crop in so much and then the IQ would be better. Look forward to seeing the original.
Ed
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Lifetime Member
Hi Willie - I'm glad you resolved the posting issues. I'm not an Apple person so could offer no help there. I think the comp and the IQ of your most recent post is much better than the op. You can still tame the highlights a bit more. It would be best to do so in the RAW converter but then you can also do so with a luminosity mask.
You can Google "Tony Kupyer luminosity mask" to get some tutorials but here's a simple version of instructions.
In PS click on the "Channels" palette.
Once the Channels are showing click on the top RGB Channel (which is actually all 3) while also pressing the "Ctrl" key. This will select the highlights.
Make a duplicate layer and then in the "Layers" palette make a mask of the selected highlights.
Still in the layers palette, go to the drop down menu which should say "normal." Select "multiply" in the drop down menu and then adjust the opacity of the layer to taste.
For future reference, you can also invert the selection and use "screen" in the drop down menu to lighten darker areas. To confuse you more, you can also use separate luminosity masks with any of the individual channels R,G, or B. Start slowly by using the instructions above to tame the highlights on this image.
I would also apply another round of selective sharpening to the head.
TFS,
Rachel
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thanks so much for your constructive comments, Rachel. I have learned so much already from this board and I am now just dipping into just what you described.
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Post a Thank You. - 1 Thanks
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Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator
Welcome to BPN Wildlife, Willie
Sorry to come in so late, I looked and marvelled at this cute little Mink earlier but had no chance to reply since I was at work. Not sure how far you were from your subject but maybe F8 was too much, I would have gone for, say F5.6. This might have also helped to "soften" the grass in the BG, which I find rather overwhelming. Good advice from Rachel and I would really like a tad more sharpening on the subject's face, well done on capturing this and thank you for posting, looking forward to more from you,
Kind regards,
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Gabriela, good suggestion on the f 5.6. I need to remember to change camera settings while shooting a subject to get different looks of the image. Of course, I was so excited to just see the mink I will accept what I have and enjoy the habitat it was in. thanks for your input and will work on learning more photoshop skills
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BPN Member
Another warm welcome here, Willie. 
You've received some good pointers here. I prefer the pose of your original post, and the mink in your 2nd post seems quite softer in terms of focus accuracy.
I agree that f5.6 would have helped separate the subject more, though it is not the best aperture for sharpness with those lenses.
The high contrast grassy background also doesn't help to make the subject pop - but not much you can do about that.
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Post a Thank You. - 1 Thanks
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Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator
Keep experimenting, Willie! And hope to see more from you on BPN Wildlife
!!!
Kind regards,