Immature Cooper's Hawk

[Jess M. McKenzie]

This guy is beginning to show interest in our bird feeders. He likes to sit atop the dog fence, so his tail extends behind the mesh. I cropped that out, but we've now installed a crossbar of pruned limbs above the Al pipe, so we should see the whole bird on his next visit. I'm submitting because I like the pose -- very hawkish, I think.
As usual, I'll be grateful for critiques.

Nikon D7100 + Tamron 150-600 at 600 mm
1/500 s at f8.0
Range ~ 16 m
PP: Almost all in LR
Cropped to ~ 1/3 of the RAW frame.
Sharpened in LR as a high freq image according to Jeff Schewe

[Diane Miller]

Very nice! Sharp with good detail in lights and darks. You might consider lowering saturation on the yellows/greens in the BG. You'd have to mask out the bird as there are a lot of yellows in it.

The fence and missing tail don't help the image, as you know, but it's always good practice.

Look forward to seeing this guy on your perch!

[Carolyn Arnesen]

Good capture of the intent stare on this beautiful bird. Some of the whites seem bright, but it could just be my eyes. The bird seems sharp and I like your comp, but I find myself looking for the lower part of the bird and wondering what it's staring at - the fence cuts off the rest of the story.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Thanks, Diane. It's nice to shoot at bigger birds. I've a crow just about that size. BTW, we're beginning to see migrants returning.
Carolyn, who knows what hawks stare at? In this case, it might be the Anna's hummer in his line of sight, or maybe he's searching for those Juncos that were running all over the place just before he arrived. I depend on them to tell me when a raptor approaches -- they disappear! The hummer though, doesn't seem concerned.
BTW, on my monitor the whites are a bit below eggshell in value. Maybe it's time to re-calibrate

[Glennie Passier]

Good catch Jess! I agree with all the above, already said. I too find a small amount of whites on his breast are a bit hot.

Can't wait to see him on your sticks!

[Diane Miller]

I opened it is PS and answered the prompt that said the color space of the file doesn't match my working space (the image is sRGB, as it should be). But to see the histogram accurately I had to answer that prompt to convert to my working space. The histogram does show some blown whites and blocked up blacks. Good eyesight, gang! Would be an easy fix, but go back to the raw file to do it. The histogram is a great tool. Believe it over your monitor.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

Everything in my shop is set to sRGB, so I'm not sure what you're saying. Is your PS working space different from sRGB? Or is mine somehow?
I'm checking my system now to make sure something hasn't glitched.

[Diane Miller]

I have PS set to ProPhoto RGB but it needs understanding of some limitations. You can create colors that can't be displayed on any monitor or print, but it does preserve the full gamut of your sensor.

Your camera will capture in a wider color gamut than sRGB. And good prints and wide-gamut monitors can do approximately an Adobe RGB gamut. I recommend setting the PS working space to Adobe RGB -- BUT it's important to go to Edit > Color Settings and check the 3 checkboxes about color space mismatches. And important to bring images into PS in 16 bits. If you use Adobe Camera Raw, at the bottom of the screen (blue underlined text) choose whatever matches your PS working space.

If all this is too confusing, sRGB isn't a horrible choice. And the color space set in the camera only applies to JPEG shooting.

[Diane Miller]

Glennie, I think you may have mentioned something about your camera color space in another thread and I forgot to mention this there, and can't find it now. Color space in camera only affects JPEG shooting. ACR and LR ignore it.

If it wasn't you, apologies.

[Glennie Passier]

Yes. It was me Diane. It was a very big thread! A great thread! "The Learning Curve". A lot of reading but well worth while. A "light bulb" thread.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

I have PS set to ProPhoto RGB but it needs understanding of some limitations. You can create colors that can't be displayed on any monitor or print, but it does preserve the full gamut of your sensor.
............... If all this is too confusing, sRGB isn't a horrible choice. And the color space set in the camera only applies to JPEG shooting.

Well, I'm not confused, but I am mystified. My Br is set to N. Amer. Gen'l Purpose 2 and this comes up in PS>Edit>Color settings. Here, the RGB shows sRGB and I see that color settings are "Synchronized." But when I change sRGB to ProPhoto RGB, the N. Amer (etc) changes to "Custom" and I see the warning that setting are "not synchronized." So, of course, i go back to Br, insert N Amer (etc) hit "Apply," and -- you guessed it -- it all starts over. That's why I think I'm stuck with sRGB. Haven't tried this with "Adobe RGB." Maybe that will work. One question: Since your PS is set to ProPhoto, is the system synchronized? BTW, we do have other CS progs on this machine, e.g., InDesign.
PS: If it's important, In LR> Edit>Preferences>External Editing the settings (incl "Additional Editor") are both ProPhoto 16 bit.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

I opened it is PS and answered the prompt that said the color space of the file doesn't match my working space (the image is sRGB, as it should be). But to see the histogram accurately I had to answer that prompt to convert to my working space. The histogram does show some blown whites and blocked up blacks. Good eyesight, gang! Would be an easy fix, but go back to the raw file to do it. The histogram is a great tool. Believe it over your monitor.

Diane, I'm catching up this AM. I didn't see any blown colors in the LR histogram, so I took the image into PS (already set up for sRGB) I looked for spikes, saw 2 on the extreme edges, and checked to see that the responsible colors were R and G. I then selected the BGD and reduced the total saturation. This eliminated the histogram spikes on both ends. I'm still looking for blown white in the bird.

[Diane Miller]

I don't use InDesign or other CC apps or Bridge, so don't have any color synchronization set -- if you do you'll have to read between the lines for that.

I'm confused by what you wrote above so let me try to state the correct way to set color management. In LR set your external editor to PS. For Color Space choose either Adobe RGB (preferable) or sRGB. I would strongly recommend against ProPhoto RGB unless you are absolutely certain what you are doing with it.

The bit depth should be 16 bit, but if you want to use sRGB system-wide, 8 bit could be OK.

In PS Edit > Color Settings > Working Space > RGB use the same you set in LR pref's. (LR doesn't use those color spaces, you're just telling it what the editor will use.) BE SURE you check those 3 checkboxes for Profile Mismatches and Missing Profiles.


Bottom line: set ALL these settings to the same space, with AdobeRGB my first recommendation and sRGB the second. But all need to match and those 3 checkboxes are your warning when something doesn't.

If this is still causing problems, post again.

[Jess M. McKenzie]

No problems using Adobe RGB. Check boxes are checked. I'm keeping the LR Export on sRGB, which seems to be most accepted space on the Web.
Thanks, Diane.

[Diane Miller]

Yes, absolutely, on the output for web posting being sRGB. That's important. That's different from the issues above. And be sure to embed the profile.