I would appreciate as much advice as possible for this shot 'cause I love it. It is one of my favorite shots from my trip to Botswana.
This is one of those shots that I know is not a WOWZER shot but there is something about it that really appeals to me.( I like the peace sign on the breast of left hand giraffe)
I don't think I have processed this correctly as it seems to lack something...but I don't know what.
This is almost full frame.
I was very spare in my PP. I used the LR 4 sliders of clarity + 15, vibrance + 15 and saturation +4. I then took it in PS5 and cloned out a grass that was on front of right hand giraffe. I used detail Extractor at 5% and then USM to JPEG at 30%
Any help you can give me would be most appreciated with thanks,
Gail
Canon 1D MKIV, f 100-400 F 10 SS 1/1250 ISO 800
Gail, this is quiet lovely. I like the interaction, the peace sign & the habitat. You could lighten the eyes a bit and add some mid tone contrast to the body of the giraffes. Colours look fine. Let's see what the experts suggest. Wonderful image, TFS.
An appealing image but the giraffes seem a little too bright to me and perhaps lacking in contrast. I may of course be off the mark here because they may have been pale in the first place??
HI Gail - A very sweet moment and not something often seen. My reaction was the same as Jonathan's. I took it into PS and did a luminosity mask to tame the highlights a bit and thought that 60% opacity worked well. Give that a try and see what you think. I'm sure others will have other suggestions too.
Hi Gail , are they cute ... yes they are . Agree with Rachel / Jonathan and their observations / suggestions.
This is not often seen two of them that close together . So you got lucky and well captured .
Hi Gail RP does look good in terms of density in the HL , 1/4 tones and 1/2 tones . good job done.
I would rework the eyes , at least i would try . Looking like dark blobs . I think you can open up more when you rework the RAW .
Hi Gail, Giraffes are so gentle creatures so it's nice to see two young young calves together and sitting, quite comfortable with your presence.
If you have it, then a bit more image content at the foot of the image would be good, it's a wee bit tight and obviously having a zoom gives you that nice flexibility. I don't mind the nose intersecting the mane of the other as it's just clipping it, and I think you dealt with the harsh light quite well, however it does give you an issue with dark items in the shadow line, i.e. the eyes, inner ear. You might be able to ease that a bit, but anything more might look false i.e. with DE, so perhaps leave as is? The exposure looks fine, but here I might peg the exposure back to bring a bit more tone back in to help provide form, definition & structure to the subjects, it also helps at the foot of the image. All this can be easily done in LR or PS in the Exp module and is surprising just how much detail & tone you can pull back in, but dropping the EV (in the field) would have been good I think and would not effect the overall exposure. Adding some Midtone will help, adding a luminosity mask can help too, but it will also change the saturation/colours so masking might be the answer?
Very nice image. I have seen calves sitting together like this but never managed such a nice image. I like your RP, with perhaps a slight drop in exposure, and removal of blue-ish tinge coming through in ears.
Ed