Vervet Monkey

[Edward Arthur]

Strolling a garden path along the Zambezi River in Zambia when I spotted this guy/gal high up in a tree joyously smashing a nut on a thick limb for a snack.

Canon 6D
Zeiss 80-200/4 @200mm
f/5.6 1/1600 ISO 640
HH and manual focus

A big crop. Basic tweaks in LR for balance, a couple Tony Kuyper lumo masks for lights/darks in PS and smart sharpening.

[Diane Miller]

A nice crop, good iight and an interesting dynamic pose. I'm a little conflicted about the limbs above the head, but you didn't have a choice so I don't mind them.

There are small areas of blown out whites -- not a big deal but wondering if they were beyond recovery in raw. The 6D should have a good dynamic range. What processor are you using?

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Nice animal but a little soft focussed to my liking. I wonder if it's worthwhile backing off the cropping just a tad to let it appear 1-2m further away? There's something funny about the nearest eye. Did you PP it selectively? If so, it might be a bit overdone.

[Edward Arthur]

Diane, I used LR5 on the raw file for basic adjustments and crop, then brought into PS CC for extra tweaks. Lumo masks are really useful but I'm finding that they'll "deaden" the image if not done right, something I'm still working on. I do have room to play with in the highlights.

Tobie, yes, I did selective curves for the lead eye in an attempt to brighten it. (Nice catch!) Maybe too much on a noisy area. I agree pulling back on the crop might be helpful.

I didn't save the master file but will go back and try to improve it from scratch. I'll RP anything worth sharing.

Thanks!

[Diane Miller]

I've used lumo masks on occasion, but for adjustments to a specific area (as opposed to an overall tonal range) I find a masked Curve much more flexible and much easier. Check my tutorial in Educational Resources on Quick Masking (a term I use differently than artie does).

I also find that the tonal range adjustments in LR/ACR have enough flexibility that I rarely need anything further in that regard in PS besides an occasional tweak when I decide I didn't hit it quite right in the raw converter.

I work in adjustment layers whenever possible and always save the master file at full size. It's so easy to edit an adjustment layer without redoing the whole thing.