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Pretty Kitty (Snow Leopard)
Aryaa lives at the Triple D Game Farm in Montana. This was taken in August. Snow leopards are spectacular in the winter but they are pretty awesome in the summer too. Canon 5d Mark II 200mm f5.6 1/250 1000. Post included some cropping, decreasing highlights a little, decreasing highlights and exposure of one section of the rock ledge. Any suggestions appreciated.
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Amazing animal. From what I've heard of them, this is a very unusual shot to get. I like the eye focus. You nailed it there. I find the green leaves a bit distracting, but that's may be just me. I would crop them out. The textures of the rocks give good contrast to the fur.
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Debated on the leaves. When I played with the crop, it seemed like the leaves gave a line for the eye to come back into the picture. Will post one tomorrow with the leaves cropped out so you can see. Thanks for the comments
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Sandy,
This is a very nice shot. I like the pose. If you crop the leaves out maybe try playing around with cropping a bit off the left hand side as well. That way the tail would be your leading line into the photo. Just an idea.
- Dave
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Here she is cropped. Are the eyes too far to the right for a good composition? I do like the crop but--is she cropped too tight for the frame and of kilter for the composition? Thoughts? Thank you for your comments.
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The original works for me. Very nice. But as Dave said, maybe crop a bit from the left to enhance the leading line of the tail. If the green leaves are a bother and you're using LR, try painting over them with the adjustment brush and reduce green/yellow luminance.
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I did crop some from the left to balance things out a bit. Tried cropping a bit more but she really looked crowded in the frame then. Do use lightroom so will play withthe luminance and try painting over them. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Thank you. Post processing skills are nominal so your suggestions are giving me directions to explore. Tried the desaturation and it seemed a bit awkward so will try the clone idea as well.
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Here is a try. What do you think?
My impression is that the first one I posted, with the leaves, is more of an environmental portrait while this last one is more of a portrait of the animal.
Last edited by Sandy Brooks; 08-14-2014 at 11:05 AM.
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You have a very nice image to begin with here. The cloning or adjustment is very noticeable. If your cloning skills are not the best I would stick to just cropping some of the plant out. Sometimes it is hard to clone out certain areas and make them look real. Also some people do not believe I cloning things out. Its what ever you as a photographer are comfortable with.
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I think you have a good crop in the OP. You might reduce the sat on the greens a bit - but it might take a masked adjustment layer in PS. Some things aren't doable in LR, or not as well. Greens are often mostly yellows, and desaturating yellow will affect other very nice areas on the animal that you want to leave alone.
The animal's face is simply stunning! The main thing I notice is the darks are heavy -- the histogram is pushed way toward the dark wall. I'd play with the Shadows slider in LR. But I don't know how well your monitor is calibrated -- go by the histogram, not the screen appearance. (Takes practice.)
Looks like the light was beautifully soft -- I'd love to see a repost with lower contarst (but not just with the Contrast slider).
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Thanks, Diane. I will play with these suggestions and repost.
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Here is an image I played with in Color FX Pro. I decreased the shadows and increased the brightness. I double checked my monitor calibration but went by the histogram. I set the whites to just touch the right and blacks to just touch the left of the histogram. (barely touch). Nest week I will be learning how to do layers so I can work on the leaves then.
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will check out the tutorial Monday (have to work an art fair tomorrow). thanks
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Looks like you replied as I was correcting my post -- I had put up the wrong histogram....
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yes, I have a different histogram. Agree about it starting to get gritty. Will go back to an earlier image to work on it again.
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Go back to the raw file to correct tonal issues like that. Once they are glued into the file in PS, you have very little leeway to change them.
We should be seeing the same histogram. Something is wrong.
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Have not worked with the mask yet. Still trying to lighten the blacks. Here is an image that has a more bell curved histogram except for the left edge. This is as low as I can get the left edge. Even completely desating the image, the black ledge behind the cat is still very dark. I was able to get a bit more of a bell curve lowering the contrast about -, lowering highlights 133 and raising shadows 50 (more than that, the shadows became bright red). Is this more in line with what you were thinking? The darks definitely seem less heavy to me.
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Is this a re-try in the raw converter? The histogram is still smashed against the left wall. Only fix is to go back to the raw file and increase exposure, then work with the other sliders. Don't use any sort of auto-anything! That's guaranteed disaster. But maybe this is just a limitation of the capture in this case, and not much you can do if the rest of the image is to be good (and it is!)
This is a very nice image and maybe it's too small a concern.
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This is a retry. I did go back and work with the exposure but just a little increase and the large amount of white washed out. So I increased the exposure as far as I could then backed the darks back in slightly. Did not do auto anything--I find I usually do not like what I end up with then. I was thinking it was a limitation in the capture when I was processing as I just could not get the darks to back off enough without them looking fake.
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This is one that is probably just that way. Not the norm.
There are some unexpected reds in the darks, which isn't easy to correct in ACR/LR but can be done in PS using the color channels in Curves or Levels.
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Spectacular image of gorgeous cat. Love it.
Regards,
Satish.