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Thread: The King

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    Default The King

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    Maasai Mara, Kenya
    Canon 1DX II, 400 F4 DO II
    1/800, F8, ISO-1600 AV +1/3EV
    Nearly FF


    A coalition of four brothers recently took over the pride in the Mara Naboisho Conservancy, Kenya. This male had been following a lioness for a few days trying to mate with her and kept her from mating with the others. On this day, he came by and sat next to the safari vehicle. The early morning sun lit up half of his face while the other half was in the shadow, giving him a mysterious and intense look.

    There is a bright spot on the lion's chin (right side). I tried to reduce the highlights in DPP, but it still looks brighter than the rest of the face. I tried to burn it at very low%, but it looks obvious. Appreciate suggestions concerning this bright spot.

    Thank you for your comments.

    Loi
    Last edited by Loi Nguyen; 02-23-2017 at 08:30 PM.

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    Wow nice shot. What you use for settings usually?

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    Lifetime Member Rachel Hollander's Avatar
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    Hi Loi - very nice close-up and frame filling image of this regal lion. Any more room to the left? With the lion's head slightly tilted and the gaze in that direction, I want more room to the left rather than the right. The light looks very nice but there is a red cast to the image. Did you adjust WB in the raw conversion? It also looks a little oversharpened to me. You could try to control the hl on the chin with the adjustment brush in ACR or LR.

    TFS,
    Rachel

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    Hi Loi -- Lovely warm light and a nice frame filling image. not sure on the crop though , would have liked hint more space in the direction he is looking. Also i think the image is a bit high on contrast and the blacks look a bit heavy to me, resulting in the loss of those finer details. Seems like you had some great encounters with the Big Cats on your trip. Keep them coming .

    TFS !

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hi Loi nice tight shot of the Lion King , seems to be a nice specimen .
    I do agree with the others regarding the crop and the overall IQ .
    For a full frame image of the 1Dx II i would expect fines details , specially with the given ISO .
    To me the image does look over processed ... sorry LOi .Wondering when you introduce that much of contrast / black in the process. Stay away from standard picture style .....told you already and any contrast pushing in DPP .

    TFS Andreas

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    I have to say I hear many conflicting comments on PP that I don't know what to think. I used Arash' s DPP guide in which he highly recommended Standard picture style. And for this image other than trying to reduce the highlights in DPP, it's pretty much come straight out of the camera. The image itself is extremely sharp, it's not because I overshatpend it. In RAW at 100% it is sharp.

    i think Rachel gave me the pointer on using the adjustment brush in LR for the bright spot and that seems like a good idea, so I will try next.

    as for the crop, I wanted very tight crop without any BG, so having more room on the left will have the dark empty BG that I don't want.

    thank you for your comments, but for some I respescfully disagree with.

    Loi

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    Regarding Arash's DPP guide , the standard picture style works in case of bird images but not quite well when it comes to mammal's, this I have experienced as I too referred his guide. Also how do you resize your images for BPN, asking this because i too had that issue with crunchy images even when i was not applying any sharpening and the image being tack sharp raw file ?

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hey Loi ... no problem if you see things differently , your image and your call.
    We give our thoughts and you have to decide if they do match yours .
    If you want to follow certain " rules" when using i.e. DPP , do so . It is just one opinion to use standard picture style ....but if i end up with a file that is very contrasty and gritty as posted ....i might overthink my WF .
    We do not know what the photographer has done in post .... we just look at the posted image .
    In the end if in this case you think this does look ok to you .... fair enough and no problem.I personally just think this is too strong in contrast and sharpening, and as a long time user of DPP i think i can tell where these effects are coming from.
    I think , following your words , you do not make a lot of edits in PS . So the contrast has to come from DPP.....
    I do not want to say i am right , as all of that is somehow subjective ... some prefer strong color and tones others soft colors and tones , or even a mix of both. That makes it interesting to see all the different views.
    I would just suggest ....find your way ,and do not follow blindly somebody elseīs suggestions , does not matter where they come from .

    You have some stunning images in your collection .... well worth to process them again and again in different ways .

    Cheers Andreas

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    Hi Everyone,

    I spent this morning looking at different picture styles in DPP and also LRCC. Andreas and Haseeb are absolutely right that "Standard" in DPP gives the image more contrast than LRCC. I did try the adjustment brush in LRCC, but wasn't happy with the results. At the end I settled for Neutral picture style in DPP, -2.0 Highlights. I decided to crop even tighter to balance out the image. Nothing done in PS except some NR reduction in the dark area. I didn't even sharpen here. I think this type of image requires more pixels than the 1000 pixel high for BPN posting. I printed a copy at 12X16 in size and am happy with the results.

    The bright spot is now much less sticking out like a sore thumb.

    Thanks again for your helpful comments

    Loi

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    Wildlife Moderator Steve Kaluski's Avatar
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    Loi, did you have HTP set here as the default?

    Overall I feel that we take 'guidelines' as a silver bullet and agree with Andreas, that setting out a Workflow is a good thing for early learning and provides an excellent platform to use as a 'Quick Start', but if you read, Arash also says Artie adjusts colours too, so I think Loi you need to start to make choices in your WF and learn to 'Master' your chosen RAW convertor. Toggling from one to another will only confuse you and overall choice in direction.

    Loi you have a lot of experience under your belt, but you need to start to work 'outside the box' and to begin to have/develop your own Workflow from the knowledge you have built up.

    My feeling is the image was bathed in nice warm light and the highlights were just on the cusp of blowing, but the LHS was in shadows. The darks & shadows appear strong with little detail i.e. in the nose, this is where you need to be subjective and if need be, open then up to provide detail & depth. 'Sculpting' the light with Channels & Masks will help provide the 'layering' where you are selectively picking key areas and addressing them rather than Global. If the original is sharp than minimal 'input' is required, likewise the final 'perceptual' sharpness.

    I think this type of image requires more pixels than the 1000 pixel high for BPN posting.
    Not true Loi, there are a huge amount of images posted across many forums with limited sizing and all look extremely good. The image should look good at any size if shot & processed correctly.

    It's a tight portrait and I think the DoF is OK, but when you go for tight, everything need to be sharp & crisp unlike a more wider angle/PoV.

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hi Loi....first of all good call on revisit the image and think , likewise checking out various options within DPP.
    Not a good idea to compare LR and DPP ....two different ways and options within the software.I already stated it in Haseebīs tiger thread, sadly what you see in DPP onscreen ...you will not see the same in PS .Even if both are set Adobe RGB color space ....i do not know why , but to me this is a Canon issue .The advantage of sticking with LR/ACR is that you see what you see in PS , in terms of color and tone.

    I do agree 100% what Steve has to say ....just above me

    As i am looking right now at work to this thread and the screen is not as good as mine at home ...i cannot comment correctly the improvement of your RP , will check later .
    Right now and from what you have done in DPP ....the image does look flat in the lighter tones . I think this is what Steve was referring to when he is talking about channels and masks to sculpture the image......locally , not globally .
    By using the HL or SH slider in DPP over 1,5 either way +or -....( my opinion) all turns flat and loosing the form within the adjusted tonal range ???!!!
    You as a operator , do not know what DPP calls HL or SH , it is a prebuilt algorithm ......, sometime it does work sometimes not .
    A way better and fully controlable way is to get this done in PS with channels & masks ( see Steve above) , but this is a longer way to get the desired sculpting of tones and color .
    HAVING SAID THIS TAKE IT AS MY PERSONAL OPINION ....NOT AS A SILVERBULLET

    You said you did not sharpen the RP .....how do you downsize ? If you use PS and take the automated route via file size .....you apply sharpening

    Cheers Andreas

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    BPN Member Andreas Liedmann's Avatar
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    Hey Loi it is me again .... being at home , looking at a proper screen .
    Looks better than at the screen at work , to be honest if the image is 100 % sharp i would expect the hairs to be finer ....even at web size .Meaning this is really nit picking from my side , just trying to figure out why it does look that way .
    Another thing are the blacks ..... still looking choked ????
    At what value have you set the clipping warning in DPP ....
    I have set mine to 6 and 245 .... to have a bit of room to work with ...

    BTW you can create your own picture style with Canonīs Picture style editor ....

    Cheers Andreas

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    Hi Loi -- I think your is definitely an improvement over your OP in terms of reducing that high on contrast and over sharpened look but those finer details are still missing. As Steve said, you have a lot of experience under your belt and I do find your images very nice technically but if they lack anything sometimes, is the PP and I guess that you are almost there but just some fine tuning is required. Your posts have always helped me to learn something or the other and the things mentioned above will definitely be helpful . Thanks for this lovely post .

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    Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator Gabriela Plesea's Avatar
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    Dear Loi,
    I love lion portraits, so thank you for sharing this wonderful capture

    In all honesty I prefer the OP. Love the red tinge there, it gives a poster quality to the image overall. And I like your composition, very much.

    What bothers me a bit is the lack of fine detail in places. Not sure how close you were to the subject, but F8 might not have been enough?

    I am back after a long period of absence - I do find the comments and discussions above very interesting, looking forward to your reply and would love to see the RAW if possible?

    Kind regards,
    Gabriela Plesea

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