American Alligator

[Adhika Lie]

As you all know, I was at St Augustine Alligator Farm last April to take picture at the bird rookery there. The trip will not be complete without a picture of the alligator, right? Here is a frame that I thought was very interesting. I use LR to work on the tonality (Exp -0.25, Highlights -100, Shadows +48, Whites +34, Blacks -32; which is pretty much how I always set my sliders, highlights down, shadows up, whites up, blacks down).

Converted to B&W using SEP Neutral preset and brought the structure slider to the right a little bit (40%). That seems to bring up the texture in the water quite a bit. Final tonality was achieved using the Selenium 1 option and I also added a little bit of vignette using the Lens Fall-Off; all done in SEP. After resizing, the image was sharpened using Nik Output Sharpener.

This sounds like something that would belong on OOtB forum, but I thought this could be quite informative on how Google Nik could enhance the image considerably.

What drew me in is really the water ripple around the mouth and the eye reflection. I got a kick out of these elements in the composition; very slight crop from the original to make the composition a little tighter. Shot at 600mm, f/9.0, 1/125, ISO800; lens mounted on a tripod (Induro CLT303 with BHM2 ballhead).

[Jim Keener]

A keeper for certain. I immediately responded to the mood set by the low key image, which spoke to me eloquently of the sinister beast. At first I wondered about the SS, but then realized that it was ideal to catch those beautiful ripples. The smooth of the water and the crusty detail of the alligator's skin make a splendid contrast. My only nit, and I could well be wrong about it, but the snout looks a bit OOF. I'm very glad you shared this.

Your sharpening makes me want to try Nik Output Sharpener

[Diane Miller]

Great catch! Love that eye reflection captured in the ripples. (The rest ain't bad, either...) I love what Nik SEP's Structure can do. Very nice tonalities, with a bit of a tone mapped look.

Is it a crop? I could go a little bit looser if that is an option. If not, no points deducted!

[Warren Spreng]

Definitely sinister looking! Like how you handled this one.

[Adhika Lie]

Jim, Diane, & Warren, thanks!

A keeper for certain. I immediately responded to the mood set by the low key image, which spoke to me eloquently of the sinister beast. At first I wondered about the SS, but then realized that it was ideal to catch those beautiful ripples. The smooth of the water and the crusty detail of the alligator's skin make a splendid contrast. My only nit, and I could well be wrong about it, but the snout looks a bit OOF. I'm very glad you shared this.

Your sharpening makes me want to try Nik Output Sharpener

Jim, you are absolutely right about the snout being OOF. I was very close to the alligator and in hindsight I should've used a smaller aperture to get it more in focus; but the shot was kinda spur of the moment when I saw the water ripple. The camera was set to capture a distant egret nest.

You should give the Nik Suite a try especially since they are now free.

Great catch! Love that eye reflection captured in the ripples. (The rest ain't bad, either...) I love what Nik SEP's Structure can do. Very nice tonalities, with a bit of a tone mapped look.

Is it a crop? I could go a little bit looser if that is an option. If not, no points deducted!

Diane, it is a crop from the UR corner, so there is not much that I can do to make it less tight in the frame; but I kinda like how tight they are though. It brings a lot of focus to the head as well.