Southern Pale Chanting Goshawk

[Charleen Ratcliff]

Taken in Etosha, Namibia

Nikon D7100, Tamron 150-600; /6.3; ISO 400; focal length 500mm; 1/1250 sec; Metering mode - pattern; aperture priority; WB auto

Brush sharpening in LR

[Dvir Barkay]

Nice shot, difficult angle and would have been nice to have light on the eyes. Is this a big crop?

[Charleen Ratcliff]

thanks Dvir

No crop at all on this shot

was in the vehicle (4x4 closed) shooting out of the window. was using the Tamron 150-600 lens (which I have since sold) as it is a very soft lens

[Diane Miller]

Nice to have a shot at this bird -- I'll guess you probably didn't have many options, but it's a bit of an awkward pose. I agree with Divr about needing some light in the eyes.

Hope you found a suitable replacement lens. That is a desirable focal length range.

[Charleen Ratcliff]

so what do you suggest for more light? using the brush in LR to lighten up that area of his face?

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Charleen,

yes use the brush for the eye shadow, lift the shadows quite a lot and maybe the exposure as well a tad till you see the eye. It might generates noise, so as well for that brush setting pull the noise a tad into the plus till it is gone. When it generates in the shadow of the eye, color pixels, turn down saturation into minus a tad till those are gone.
All steps now:
- I painted ONLY the shadow in the eye - all darks - lifted in this Jpeg, which is not ideal
shadows + 91
Exposure + 0.63
Saturation - 44
Noise +22

- grab a NEW second paint brush, paint only the black in the eye, the pupil only, switch on the Show the selected Mask Overlay
I pulled the clarity slider into +66

- Grab a third new brush and paint the whole body and set the paint brush to the sharpening you know!

- Grab a fourth brush, paint the beak ONLY, use always the "Show selected Mask Overlay on the left hand side bottom right under the image, make a tic in this little box.
My settings in here - the sharpening you KNOW

- Grab a fives brush and paint over the head with "contrast only, settings about + 50, you need to apply all this with the zoom 1:1


The image itself has a tad to much blacks, would lift that as well a tad overall to the whole image.

When you do the brush and all, zoom the image up to 1:1 or 2:1. This will help you to see much more as when you have it set too Fit or fill!
Now compare your Original post with mine that you can see the difference and what can/should be addressed!

Cheers

Anette

[Charleen Ratcliff]

Many thanks Anette for your work on this. Now I will try to make the changes on the original nef file and repost in this thread!

[Jim Keener]

Beautiful animal. I like the composition a lot, especially considering you didn't crop. My favorite part is the juxtaposition of the thorns and claws. One of those fortunate accidents. I'm especially grateful to be a tagalong in this thread, learning from the comments others are making. My guess is that it was quite exciting to make this shot.

[Charleen Ratcliff]

Thanks Jim, I have several shots of him/her trying to get comfy on these thorny trees...was lucky to get any shots!

I am still working on the edit in LR!!!

[Charleen Ratcliff]

Have done a re-edit as per Anette Mossbacher's instruction, who is my mentor/teacher, friend! Still don't have the eye area as light as her suggestions, but do think that my edit is better than my original post!

[Diane Miller]

Much better!