pinkies on a barn owl

[Bob Smith]

I caught this shot of a barn owl as the bird came out of his exit door at the apex of a local barn roof. Unfortunately I had made the mistake of setting exposure for the shaded area of the exit hole and he got out into the full evening sun so quickly that all my images had the totally burned out whites I call "pinkies" as seen on the wing here. I've tried to get rid of them by adjusting Recovery (I'm using "Aperture" for post ),Highlights, Brightness, and Curves but with no luck. I do have Lightroom and DPP4, and PSCC if needed. I look forward hopefully to any suggestions..

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[Glennie Passier]

Bob, great capture full of action. Love the outstretched wings and feet trailing behind. I see what you mean with the pinkies. I would be tempted to do a Hue/Sat layer or selective colour just on those bits. I think the frame is well worth the effort of having a play. There seems to be a bit of haloing around the lower wing and neck.

I hope to see more!

[Warren Spreng]

I agree with Glennie on trying the Hue/Saturation or Selective Color on those areas. Nice details, I also see the halos that Glennie refers to, and of course I would love a more head on shot to get the eyes but understand how hard that can be when the bird shot out of the barn that quickly! Lovely colors on the bird other than the pink areas! :)

[Bob Smith]

It was double bad luck Warren, although really, exposure setting was error and not luck( I should have anticipated that any out-coming bird would get into the sun so quickly ). The bad luck was my choice of which direction it would fly in determining where to set up. I only got 3 side shots before it turned away from me------ but I got lots of bum shots. I'm going to have to get up to speed on Layers before I can implement the advice on fixing the Pinkies, but I'm finally knuckling down and working my way through a PS course before opening up my APTATS discs.

[Warren Spreng]

It was double bad luck Warren, although really, exposure setting was error and not luck( I should have anticipated that any out-coming bird would get into the sun so quickly ). The bad luck was my choice of which direction it would fly in determining where to set up. I only got 3 side shots before it turned away from me------ but I got lots of bum shots.

I had to laugh, I get lots of those as well! Amazing with the setting you had that the entire Owl wasn't blown out. Keep them coming!

[Diane Miller]

The owl is really very nice. I have never used Aperture. If you have a halfway current version of LR (also the CC version?), try it. The overexposed areas shouldn't go pink, but can be fixed if they are blown out white. The sky came out too saturated. An easy fix starting with LR.

You will find tutorials on LR and one on the basics of PS Layers on my web site -- link below my signature.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks Dianne. I tried all the exposure related adjustments to no avail, but was finally able to get rid of the pinkies---mostly--- by cloning them out.

[Diane Miller]

That worked well, except there is a repeat in the top area of the shadow. What camera?

The sky is a bit over-saturated. Fixable with a simple Hue-Saturation adjustment on the Blue channel in PS. (Better to do it raw, though. The HSL panel in LR is for issues like that when the initial global Temp and Tint adjustments still leave some color issues.)

[Bob Smith]

Apologies Dianne--you pointed that out the 1st time and I was so pleased with my cloning success that I forgot to do it.

[Diane Miller]

Much better!!