Hi Jonathan very cool image .
Color/tones and exp does look spot on .I like the colors a lot more in this one , the last one was carrying to much orange for my taste .
I am fine with the noise in the BG .Looks better to me than this smudgy looking noise treated BG´s. Is giving somehow a film character .
Hi Jonathan, IQ is better on this one and I quite like the inquisitive posture of the squirrel, good to see them making a recovery after all these years.
Personally I might look at the darker green 'blobs' of moss in the top third of the BKG, a bit heavy & distracting IMHO. A more toned back or even removal (cloned) would help and offer a more cleaner backdrop for the subject to sit against. Getting an even lower POV may have give the image the edge, (getting down & dirty is fun & it's all organic ), but then without knowing the full BKG it's perhaps hard to confirm.
Lovely moment captured here!
Agree with Steve on lower angle and greens- was the first impression when I opened the thumbnail.
With Andreas on noise, did you do selective sharpening for web?
TFS!
Hi Jonathan,
Love your squirrels with the crazy ears! They look like a mad scientist!
I like the clear view of the paw and the little grasses coming out of the log/branch.
I find the log/ branch a bit overwhelming.I could see this as a vertical to reduce the impact of the log.
I agree the BG suffers from posterization and would do a surface blur. I would also remove the cone under the squirrel. I thought it was squirrel poo when I first looked at it.
Sweet shot though that made me smile!
gail
Thanks very much everyone you have certainly given me some food for thought. The colours are I think a little OTT, I have been using DPP and it produces quite different results to ACR even when using the same camera settings (e.g. Auto daylight cloudy etc). Noise reduction is something else, I have been reading the 1DX manual again and I am getting the distinct impression that the in camera settings for noise reduction are applicable to raw files - I was under the impression that these settings only applied to jpegs (pretty certain that is the case in the 7D). I was keen to gauge your reaction to the noise - most of you are used to very little noise and I am still getting used to the fact that there is very little in comparison to my previous cameras.
Having said that I have now reset my camera to High ISO noise reduction to "Standard" so I think from now on there will be less noise. I don't think I applied any noise reduction in Photoshop to the image, on reflection I suppose a little "Light" Topaz Denoise would be beneficial. I attach a rework based upon your suggestions.
My sharpening regime for websized images is the one developed by Philip Perold, I have modified the Action for 800, 900, 1024, 1050,1200, and 1400px images.
I made a typo in my post, the was ISO 8,000 not ISO 5,000
Last edited by Jonathan Ashton; 11-26-2014 at 04:30 AM.