Cormorant - WSNBG

[Mike Blackburn]

First Post here. Would like some input on this image of a cormorant hopping up onto a perch please?


5DIII | 300/4 + 1.4xii | 1/1000 | f/8 | ISO500

[David Kenny]

Nice job freezing the action here. I especially like the "frozen" water droplets and I like where you have positioned the bird in the frame. The lighting is a little harsh and I found the out of focus area along the bottom distracting. Don't forget to comment on other posts here on Eager to learn.

-Dave

[Diane Miller]

Hi Mike, and welcome to BPN -- a great place to learn!

Nice catch! In today's world, processing is almost as important as capture. Can you give some details of that aspect? As David pointed out, you had harsh light to deal with, along with a busy background.

[Mike Blackburn]

...processing is almost as important as capture. Can you give some details of that aspect? As David pointed out, you had harsh light to deal with, along with a busy background.

Thanks.
Processed through LR5 - about 2/3 crop, adjust WB, gentle work on the highlight and shadow sliders. I then usually pop into Viveza and for this I pushed structure on the feathers and perch, increased eye saturation and tried to drop structure and brightness on the background. I also had to deal with some CA on the airborne droplets.
Then through dFine and (this is where i struggle) - converted to 72ppi and into Sharpener pro - i tend to use as little as I can get away with and all global no local sharpening.
Agree that the initial image was probably doomed due to the harsh light and the proximity of the subject to the background....

[Diane Miller]

Sounds like you're in the advanced class -- good processing technique! I would have tried a little more highlight reduction, but I don't know how well it will work without trying it.

The Dfine and Sharpener steps are everyone's nightmare. Sharpening and noise reduction mostly cancel one another. The most success is often to not do either on the master file, or just very judiciously. I usually do Dfine on a stamped layer on the master file (a composite of the layers below) and usually don't need to mask it to the BG. It's pretty amazing. Then I just export from LR with a preset for the BPN parameters, often at the high sharpening setting. Sometimes I'll pull the JPEG back into PS for a very slight touch of Smart Shrpen. But many ways to skin a cat with this stuff. Whatever works, works.

[Iain Barker]

Nice first Image Mike.

I really like the pose you have captured. I agree with David about the out of focus area and if it were mine I think I would crop in quite tight to both wings. I think this would get rid of some of the OOF area and would give the image more impact by bringing the focus more on the birds head. What do you think?

Iain

[Mike Blackburn]

Iain, thanks, I had a look at doing that but the only way to do that is to end up with a square crop. I may try adding canvas at the top to convert it to a portrait orientation but I suspect that I simply do not have enough pixels

Diane, thanks for the tips. Will give them a go..