Dig This !!

[John Robinson]

Just been frantically looking for a pic request entitled "Owls and gardens " I was struggling on this one, and this was all I could come up with. Taken a couple of years back when I spent most of the Summer on the Little owl family. I used to dig a little ground over wevery time I went and leave the fork stuck in the ground in the plot. The birds soon learned to use it as a perch and any worms or other insects etc,didn,t last long!.
NIkon D7000
640 ISO
80th sec @ f7.1
Sigma 100-300mm.
70% of full frame.
Taken quite late.
Neat image.
PP Paintshop Pro 7
Thanks for looking and last image comments.
Cheers
JohnR

[Bill McDonald]

Hi John ... I think the image you came up with more than fits the subject "Owls and Gardens" Really GREAT shot with good subject balance. If there was one thing to criticize, it might be that the image has a strong green tint, including the owl, but that may be an illusion from the amount of green colour in the background and the green paint on the old spade handle. I love owl images that have that penetrating stare! Super shot!

[John Robinson]

Thanks Bill
I didn,t check it too closely as the clients were happy. Willdo
Cheers
John

[Mike Milicia]

Nice pose and composition with interesting perch and great BG with the included OOF fence to add to the garden motif!

Have only seen this species in photos but the color of the bird does seem to be off making it look unnatural and a bit flat to my eye.

[John Robinson]

Thanks
One of the pair was particularly contrasty to the norm so it may be that. Other wise I don't know.
Just done white balance check and looks near enough to me on the whites. Maybe the old story of different monitors and browsers again etc.
Cheers
JohnR

[Dumay de Boulle]

Great BG and I really like the different perch...I have to say the colure are very far off. I see a Green and an Aqua in the darker feathers. I would also try remove the OOF fence in the BG and do some NR to smooth it out.

[adrian dancy]

The image of the owl on a spade is sweet. You have the basis of a really good image here. The background colours look fairly natural but the owl, colour wise, is completely off, it's not a monitor problem from my end. Also there is a very obvious hard line showing two types of green between the owl's legs indicating some kind of selection problem where I imagine the problem lies.

[Sandy Witvoet]

Great title... way cool pose and comp. I like the BG (including the OOF fence, which gives just enough balance without being intrusive)... The underside of the tail and the lower left side (as we look at it) of the owl seem to be picking up the aqua color from the shovel handle?

[John Robinson]

Thanks
tried some adjustments,
JohnR

[Raybel Robles]

Hi John,

Im with the rest on this one. The image still have a very strong green cast to it. Almost a filter like colors.

[Mike Milicia]

Hi John,

Hope you don't mind that I took a stab at it. Still not great but it's the best I could come with using the jpeg. I used a Color Balance adjustment layer and added 40 points of red and yellow and 15 points of magenta.
I'm not sure you will ever get rid of the cast on the underside of the tail, etc., presumably from the shovel, but you might try doing so selectively.

[John Robinson]

Thanks all. I think his one is for the bin. The dark colours on the bird are not right and the background too saturated. On my gear anyway. Thanks for your help.
JohnR

[shane shacaluga]

Here is my quick version using a 50% grey process i learnt a while back

[Diane Miller]

Lovely in every way -- except the colors. Something has gone wrong. It almost look like cross-processing, or possibly that somehow an incorrect profile got "assigned". It doesn't look like a simple WB / tint fix.

In addition, because John's software doesn't let him embed profiles, some of you will be seeing the colors incorrectly, mostly depending on your browser. If you don't know about this pitfall, go to Educational Resources and read "Seeing Colors Correctly..."

Now open the image in PS and if you don't get a warning that there is no profile, go to Educational Resources and read "Seeing Colors Correctly..." If you do get the warning, check the option to Convert to your working space. Now at least the histogram will be correct. (And convert back to sRGB if you do a RP.)

Now, back to the problem: What color is the handle? Is it really a greenish-cyan? I'm going to assume the more neutral areas are a slightly warm-gray, as you might expect of old wood. I'm using the tools in PS here, and I realize John uses other tools, but I don't know his, and with mine I can at least diagnose the issue.

If I neutralize the gray areas of the handle (with the gray eyedropper in a Curves adjustment layer) and then add a touch or warmth I get only a small change, with a little of the green cast removed. But the lighter tones have a red-magenta cast. The OP is somewhat low in contrast which suggests some color channels may be too low in contrast. I threw out that Curve and did another, doing Auto, although there are several options, somewhat hidden in an options menu (red circle in the figure) and that brings the ends of the color channels in somewhat. The contrast increased a bit too much, and pushed the lighter tones too far. I brought up the middle of the RGB curve to lighten overall exposure a bit.



Still looks odd, somewhat under-saturated with the bird still a little bluish and flat. To get some warmth in the bird I did a Color Balance layer and warmed the shadows a little. That made the BG a little too yellowish so back tot eh Hue-Sat layer where I reduced saturation on the yellows a little. It's still not right, but better.



More tweaking could be done, but you get the idea.

Maybe the WB on the camera (if it was on auto) had a problem with the near-monochromatic bird and handle, and a more colorful BG? Once a WB is glued into a JPEG (or film) it's difficult to correct. Much easier in a raw file, but I do understand John's shooting in JPEG and generally his results are stunning. This one is just strange, for whatever reason.

And being an older file, maybe some problematic changes got made after capture that were cooked into the file (rather than as adjustment layers).

[John Robinson]

Thanks Diane
I understand most of what you have done (I think) I have a feeling the trouble started with the original lacking in contrast.
Cheers
John