Cowabunga!!

[gail bisson]

The pose of this bald eagle reminds of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was the pose that Leonardo would often be seen in as he yelled "cowabunga".
Can you tell my kids grew up during the TMNT craze?!
Canon 1 DX
100-400mm vII and 1.4 x III at 379 mm
ISO 800 SS 1/2500 f 7.1
PP: Cropped to a full frame vertical from horizontal. levels, DE at 1 % to eagle and USM to JPEG.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Karl Egressy]

Great IQ and amazing pose, Gail. It looks so much three dimensional and that's I like about this image the most.

[Norm Dulak]

Gail, your eagle is absolutely awesome. There is nothing not to like in this image!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gail very powerful looking guy this Eagle .
Love the dynamic pose and the comp. Colors and detail are looking good on this one.

Just for the sake of interest , how much have you lightened the eagle in the raw converter ? And what is DE at 1 % giving you ? This does sound very, very low ?!

Lovely job all around, Gail
TFS Andreas

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gail - Fantastic, dynamic pose with excellent sharpness and detail. I continue to love your eagle images.

TFS,
Rachel

[gail bisson]

Hi Andreas,
I did not lighten the eagle at all.
I used LR5 clarity 15
vibrance 4
saturation 8
I did not touch shadows but reduced highlights by -30
The first file is with DE at 1%. The bottom image is without DE.
I find detail extractor to be VERY powerful on images that are tack sharp to begin with and if the subject is large within the frame.
If the subject is small in the frame I may use DE as high as 6 to 8 %.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Thanks Gail from my POV i would prefer the version without the DE and would even go lower with the clarity in LR , but this is just my view .
Thank you for the demo

Cheers Andreas

[gail bisson]

Hi Andreas,
I have to agree with you now that I see the images side by side. The image without the DE seems smoother to my eye.
So here is a repost without the DE at all and I reduced the clarity to +12.
Thanks for your opinion- I always love to learn and try new things,
Gail

[Andreas Liedmann]

Gail we never stop learning ........ hopefully .
I do not use LR /ACR actually now , but give it try without clarity , for one simple reason you apply it across the whole image if i get you right ?!
Why not using the nice luminosity masks PS is giving you ........ and you can work more delicate and targeted , the downside of this is you have to work a bit more , but i.e. this fame is worth the additional work ..

Andreas

[Bill Dix]

Fabulous pose -- Ninja-like indeed. Great IQ. I rather liked the OP, but would take either in a heartbeat.

[arash_hazeghi]

excellence dynamic pose, sharp details and excellent exposure.

the plumage color looks a bit off to my eye, most likely from processing, clarity, DE etc.

TFS

[mohammad reza shahab]

Hi Gail, amazing dynamic pose and excellent detail.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Looks good to my eyes. I like the repost better. Thank you for sharing.

[gail bisson]

So I am home with nothing better to do than to drive myself crazy using different methods to convert this RAW image.
Arash- I think the colors are fairly true to the scene but after your comment I went back to the RAW and processed it in DPP4.
First thing I noticed is that the whites were blown as per DPP4 set-up ( as per your set points in your guide) but they didn't show as blown in LR5. I did have a few blinkies on the head of the eagle on the back of the camera on the JPEG but not as much as DPP says !
So I reduced the exposure by .30. This of course has made the sky bluer and the eagle darker. I am now wondering if I should change the way I have my 1 DX set up for picture style. I use standard but have customized it so that contrast is set at -2. I am thinking this is too much and perhaps I should set it to -1? Your opinion would be most appreciated.
Can I send you the RAW file to see how you would process it? Where would I send the file? I don't think I can PM it to you.
This is my version with DPP4.

[arash_hazeghi]

Gail in the last image the plumage of the bald eagle look natural to my eye, the whites look good too, the original looks a bit contrasty and over-processed to me. send me the RAW file and I'll work on it.

I personally would avoid using such filters as NIK, vibrance etc. A sharp, clean RAW files doesn't need this kind of over-processing IMO. It should look great pretty much out of the camera


best

[David Salem]

What an awesome pose on this incoming Eagle Gail!! Great that the head is separated and shows well along with the hanging legs and feet. Very dynamic!! After looking at all of them for a few minutes I like the last repost the best. Maybe separately jack up the blue channel a hair on that one. I like the clarity, whites and detail on that one the best. What a smoking frame though!!

[John Robinson]

Hi Gail
I don't understand all the gobblede gook at all but all I know is the OP looks great to me. That's a critique on the image I see on my monitor.
Cheers
John R

[Jonathan Ashton]

For me the DPP processed image is the best - by far. When using DPP I would agree the details appear finer and I have never really appreciated the need for Nik filters or Topaz detail. I think the DPP image looks most natural and realistic (got to admit I have never seen one of these birds in flight mind!)

[Stu Bowie]

Hi Gail, a very dramatic inflight pose, and great that the head is separated from the far wing. Excellent detail throughout, and your DPP4 post works the best. Very well captured.

[keith mitchell]

Gail some of the tec stuff is way out of my understanding,its a superb piece of photography in my eyes.

Keith.

[arash_hazeghi]

This would be my processing, the RAW was indeed overexposed a bit (~1/2 stops) but really easy to recover

Attachment 151094

[gail bisson]

Thanks Arash.
Looks excellent. Can you tell me exactly what sliders you used? And the numbers you used?
I did the NR as per your guide. Did you do the same thing? Did you use anything else than DPP4?
Your version looks a bit "smoother" than mine. I reduced the exposure by .30. Did you reduce the brightness down to .5?

Gail

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Gail,

I reduced exposure by 0.28eV, then I used highlight -4 to recover the whites, I used saturation + 0.5 to bring out the color a tad. I also used the "advanced" color adjustment tab to slightly de-saturate the sky (I used the two blue shades) and make it a lighter (because I toned down the highlights). After that I dumped the TIFF in photoshop, cropped and resized to 1200 pixels. I used smart sharpen 100,0.5 and saved the file for web.

I didn't use any NR besides the C/L sliders set to 2 in DPP, you can even set it to 0 as the 1DX files have no visible noise at this ISO when converted with DPP4.

best

Arash

[shane shacaluga]

Great tutorial on processing on a superb image. Flight pose rocks. The final 2 RP do look better I must say

TFS

[Don Lacy]

I am now wondering if I should change the way I have my 1 DX set up for picture style. I use standard but have customized it so that contrast is set at -2. I am thinking this is too much and perhaps I should set it to -1?

Hi Gail, First off wonderful image as far as setting up your picture style to best simulate your raw file I would recommend neutral with contrast at -4 and saturation at -3 or -4 you can leave color tone at 0 and set sharpness where ever you like. This will produce a flat looking image on the LCD but will give you a histogram that more closely resembles the tonal values of the Raw file even then you will still have some room in the highlights you can recover if needed. again do not use the image on the LCD to judge exposure only use the histogram the blinkies you can use a general guideline.

[dankearl]

Cool crazy pose, I prefer the last one by Arash, but after looking at all, the differences are pretty minor.
Nice workflow, PP discussion...

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Gail, First off wonderful image as far as setting up your picture style to best simulate your raw file I would recommend neutral with contrast at -4 and saturation at -3 or -4 you can leave color tone at 0 and set sharpness where ever you like. This will produce a flat looking image on the LCD but will give you a histogram that more closely resembles the tonal values of the Raw file even then you will still have some room in the highlights you can recover if needed. again do not use the image on the LCD to judge exposure only use the histogram the blinkies you can use a general guideline.

to add to this, with the 1DX noise is not an issue, I would be very conservative with high lights accepting no blinkies on the screen, you can lift the shadows quite easily in dpp.

best

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gail and all others ,again an interesting thread from my POV about different view of things when it comes to processing .
Thanks Gail for sending me the raw just for the sport of it .
As i have a different approach compared to Arash and maybe you , as i do not that much in DPP regarding opening up shadows or toning down HL in DPP .
I normally do not touch the SH / HL recovery in DPP i just use the exposure , picture style and the curve tab for the white/black point to make tonal adjustments .So i normally send a dark flat file to PS , reason for this is i have the total control of the tonal adjustments by using luminosity masks for targeted adjustments .
Nothing wrong with the DPP sliders in general ,i just prefer the control about all tonal ranges in many little increments if i wish and DPP cannot give me this as there is no option for choosing tiny portions of the tonal range .

So not saying my approach is "THE" way , just my way .

Gail sadly you cannot ask me the way i got this , simply it is too complex to explain it here.

Just like to know what you or all others think about version which is again slightly different to all others posted .

Cheers Andreas

[shane shacaluga]

Great RP Andreas. Definitely seeing more details in the white head feathers on this one. The rest is hard to judge to be honest

Thanks for the explanation on your workflow. I saw a tutorial on the use of Luminosity masks for a number of different tones and it looks to be very effective. Seemed a bit of work to set them up and not sure if they would need to be setup for all the images or once setup once you can recall them and apply the masks to all images

TFS

[Girish Prahalad]

Everything has been said above. I would prefer a horizontal comp for this with some space for the bird to fly in.

[gail bisson]

Hi Andreas,
I agree with Shane that the whites have more detail in your conversion process and the rest of the eagle looks pretty much the same to my eye. I have tried to understand luminosity masks but have failed miserably.
Thanks for taking the time to do this Andreas.
This thread really shows how different chefs can make the same dish!
Gail

[Andreas Liedmann]

Gail for a real comparison of all different versions one need to take them into PS and compare them all side by side , to see the sometimes only subtle differences.
Luminosity masks are easy to deal with , just go to Tony Kuyper´s website and have a look there, a lot of basic stuff is explained there.If you want to go deeper just purchase his PS panel and all the PDF he offers and you see how easy it is .

Cheers Andreas

[Jim Crosswell]

Great image Gail! A very informative thread.

[Mike Hitchen]

What a great shot, Gail. (My first thought was 'where are the roller skates').

ALso thanks to Arash and Andreas and Gail for showing how relativey small changes in processing can really change the impact of the image.