First post, just starting out

[Warren Spreng]

This is my first post, so hope attaching the image is one of the correct ways to do this! I have been into Astrophotography for over 4 years but have been a casual bird watcher for a long time. After obtaining a Tamron SP 150 - 600 lens I decided to try my hand at this as one more hobby to add to my list with my retirement looming near on the horizon! I plan to start out just imaging in nearby parks and my backyard and eventually get into setups.

So my first image is a Cardinal I caught in Pine Hills Park in Mason, OH on December 22, 2014. This is handheld with my Canon Rebel EOS T3i with the Tamron SP 150 - 600mm. ISO 800, f6.3, 1/2500
Processed in PS CS4 with simply some saturation added to the background around the Cardinal. I'm thrilled with the focus speed and image stabilization with this new lens. Comments, suggestions, etc, welcomed! I have been enjoying the beautiful shots that I have seen in the short time I have been visiting some of the forums.


[IMG][/IMG]

[Diane Miller]

Hi Warren, and welcome to BPN! This is a lovely bird in a natural setting, and it looks like your equipment is working well for you. We all strive to get a bird without branches in front of it, but it's not always easy to do. I think it might do with a little boost in exposure, though that might brighten the sky too much. The adjustment could be just masked to the bird. I'd give it a try but I can't figure out how to grab the image from Flickr.

It's possible to post a full-sized image directly from Flickr -- see the post in the Educational Resources forum: Posting Images from Online Sources. Somebody else had a problem with Flickr recently and I'd forgotten that I posted this.

It's especially helpful here in ETL to give some information about your processing and skill level.

I'd love to chat with you about astrophotography, which is a recent interest of mine. Email me if you're interested: dianemiller@hughes.net. Some of us push the envelope and post the occasional AP image in Landscape.

[Warren Spreng]

Hi Warren, and welcome to BPN! This is a lovely bird in a natural setting, and it looks like your equipment is working well for you. We all strive to get a bird without branches in front of it, but it's not always easy to do. I think it might do with a little boost in exposure, though that might brighten the sky too much. The adjustment could be just masked to the bird. I'd give it a try but I can't figure out how to grab the image from Flickr.

It's possible to post a full-sized image directly from Flickr -- see the post in the Educational Resources forum: Posting Images from Online Sources. Somebody else had a problem with Flickr recently and I'd forgotten that I posted this.

It's especially helpful here in ETL to give some information about your processing and skill level.

I'd love to chat with you about astrophotography, which is a recent interest of mine. Email me if you're interested: dianemiller@hughes.net. Some of us push the envelope and post the occasional AP image in Landscape.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Diane! I also figured out that I can upload images to my album so I may try that as well. I'll try to do some boost on the exposure of the bird by using a mask. I'm familiar with that from doing AP. I'll send you an email, would love to chat about AP with you. It's a totally different animal from wildlife imaging! It's nice to actually take a "Shot" and not spend 5 - 9 hours on one subject! Of course waiting for a bird to light exactly where you want it to may take that much time as well!!

[Warren Spreng]

OK, still working my way around navigating this site. I masked and lightened and sharpened the bird, and let's see if I can post now from my computer!

[Diane Miller]

Yes, better. Too bad about the leaf in front of the head -- often a step to one side can move an object like that to a less bothersome position.

A crop from the bottom and left would be worth considering, which would move the bird off center and get rid of the small twig coming in from the bottom, and the heavy branch on the left.

Good you know PS! What are you using for raw conversion? I assume Adobe Camera Raw, from your saying you processed it in PS CS4.) I'm wondering if the darkest tones could have been lightened there, and the lightest ones held down or darkened, although it's possible to go too far in lightening shadows and bring up noise. The best way to minimize noise in dark areas is to "expose to the right" as much as possible without blowing out highlights.

The newer version of ACR 7 in PS CS6 and later, or Lightroom 4 and later, have "Process 2012" sliders which give better tonal control for pulling out details in darks and lights.

[Warren Spreng]

Thanks for the suggestions. I just signed up for the annual PS and haven't had a chance to explore all of the new stuff, but it automatically converts the RAW files which is nice as I was getting tired of using separate programs for that. And you can go back to Camera Raw as a filter which is a nice touch.

It was either the leaf in front or there is another larger branch just out of the field of view that would have blocked it worse had I moved so I chose the lesser of two evils!

[Diane Miller]

I'm not sure what you mean about automatic conversion. I haven't used PS CC but it should still give you Adobe Camera RAW for conversion. That is a separate program, but is integrated with PS. Each file will want separate parameters (slider positions) and an "auto" setting often does more harm than good. So using a separate program is the only way to maximize a raw file. RAW converters and PS are apples and oranges.

The best $15 you can spend is this raw conversion guide. It's aimed at landscapes but works equally well for any type of subject. He's using the Lightroom interface but the sliders work the same -- same conversion engine as PS CS6 and later, but different (and better) than CS4.
http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape...n-lightroom-5/

Beware of the thing about using CRAW as a filter in PS -- it's convenient but you're not working with the tonal overhead of a raw file -- you're just using the sliders on a rasterized file. So you don't have nearly the leeway to bring back detail in darks and lights that you do with the raw file.

[Diane Miller]

Or, if you got Lightroom in the package with PS CC, it is wonderful for organizing files, and I find the interface for raw conversion to be much easier to use.

[Warren Spreng]

I'm not sure what you mean about automatic conversion. I haven't used PS CC but it should still give you Adobe Camera RAW for conversion. That is a separate program, but is integrated with PS. Each file will want separate parameters (slider positions) and an "auto" setting often does more harm than good. So using a separate program is the only way to maximize a raw file. RAW converters and PS are apples and oranges.

The best $15 you can spend is this raw conversion guide. It's aimed at landscapes but works equally well for any type of subject. He's using the Lightroom interface but the sliders work the same -- same conversion engine as PS CS6 and later, but different (and better) than CS4.
http://www.michaelfrye.com/landscape...n-lightroom-5/

Beware of the thing about using CRAW as a filter in PS -- it's convenient but you're not working with the tonal overhead of a raw file -- you're just using the sliders on a rasterized file. So you don't have nearly the leeway to bring back detail in darks and lights that you do with the raw file.

Sorry, I meant to say that when I open up a RAW file in the PS CC it automatically opens it in Adobe Camera RAW, which I did not have in CS4. And thanks for the link, I'll check that out!

[Diane Miller]

That's odd -- CS4 should behave the same way, as far as I remember. (I use Lightroom as my base station so only rarely opened a raw file from outside it.) Maybe there was a Preference for opening a raw file -- but no matter at this point. CC will be better in other ways, too.