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Thread: Burrowing Owl Posing

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    Default Burrowing Owl Posing

    Name:  _W7A6349_1_w.jpg
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    Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 500mm f4L IS II, Canon EF 1.4x III
    700mm, ISO 800, f5.6, 1/3200 sec, Manual Mode, Evaluative Metering
    Raw conversion via DxO Optics Pro 8.5


    This is was taken earlier this year on a visit to Lubbock, TX, and it is a heavy crop. I was trying out DxO Optics Pro version 8 (the previous version) which is available for free at the moment. Nearly all adjustments done in DxO; following the Raw conversion I brought it into PP CC, only to clone out 1 rock, do final cropping, do smart sharpening, add my watermark signature, and resize for the web. No noise reduction done outside of the light global noise reduction in DxO Optics Pro 8.5.

    Any and all comments will be appreciated.

    Barry

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    Lifetime Member gail bisson's Avatar
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    Hi Barry,
    A highly appealing image.
    I like the light and the view of the feet and the nice POV.
    How much of a crop is " a heavy" crop?
    I am trying to figure out if the pixellation in the dark BG is due to the crop or the need for more noise reduction.
    In any case, I would do another round of NR on the BG or try a bit of surface blur to get rid of the pixellation.
    A very nice shot,
    Gail

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    Thanks Gail. After cropping but before resizing for web the resulting photo is 38% of original size on both the height and width - is the right way to describe it by saying that it is a 62% crop, or do I look at resulting number of pixels (3.19 million vs uncropped 22.1 million) and say it is a 86% crop overall? I hadn't really thought about it before.

    I also smart sharpened a second time after resizing (my standard approach). Looking back, the pixellation is slightly worse in the smaller version, not hugely so but maybe exacerbated by the second round of sharpening? I agree some NR would certainly help, mostly I wanted to see how DxO would do using it's 'standard' auto adjustment settings.

    Barry

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Terrific look from this guy, with a very nice low POV and good background. Good comments from Gail, that should help the bg. Only other nit is that the few highlights on the wing feathers look a little crunchy from sharpening. Everyone has their own method. When I sharpen (on an adjustment layer), and see the crunchiness in a few selected spots, I'll take the eraser tool at say 25% opacity, and just touch those areas to reduce the sharpening in the bad spots.

    I'm glad you asked the question about defining size of crop. I've asked the same question and never really received a satisfactory answer (or rather, I've received differing answers). I think some refer to size of crop as percent of width, and some as percent of area. I suspect the latter is technically correct. I avoid the question by describing the output as, say, 38% of original width. I'll be curious to see how others respond.

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    Nice Owl shot Barry .Gail raised some interesting points It does look a little bright to me though but maybe its my setup.
    About cropping I usually say so much % of the full frame, but as long as its somewhere near right I don't think its a bone breaking issue.
    Cheers
    John

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    Lovely shot! Excellent pose, POV and exposure. I would do a round of NR as suggested by Gail.

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    Forum Participant John Cooper's Avatar
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    Love your composition here Barry and the beautifuuly sharp owl and mound. The stare of those eyes is very captivating. Lovely image!

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