Short-eared owl

[gail bisson]

Hello everyone!
I have been away from the boards for a few months. Since retiring, I have been traveling non stop since January and/or dealing with a sick 84 yo Mom. I have spent a lot of time with Mom in Halifax ( a 5 hour drive from Sydney) but she doesn't have internet in her assisted living home and I haven't been able to process images ( I never process on my laptop, only my desktop) for my posts to BPN. I have not used Photoshop since January so am feeling very rusty. Let me know if I need to "pull my socks up"!
I took this image in Vancouver January 2017.
PP: ~ 65% FF. Usual LR sliders then off to CS5 and I dodged the owl's right eye, levels, NR to BG and DE at 1% to owl only. I cloned out 2 grass stems that were coming up from the bottom of the frame.
ISO 800 SS 1/2000 F 5.6
Canon 1 DX 600MM II and 1.4X
Comments and critiques always learned from and appreciated with thanks.
Gail
I thought about adding a catchlight to the owls' right eye but decided against it as it would not make sense due to sun angle and pupil is dilated thus confirming less light on that eye. Let me know your thoughts on this. I can certainly add one.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Hi Gail, missed you. Beautiful owl, intense stare, head on... nice. I would not add a catch light to the other eye unless there was a faint existing one, otherwise I think it would look out of place. If a faint catch light exists then I might brighten it. When we are capturing images of wild birds we take what we get, so shadows are inevitable. Love the background, nice work. Thank you for sharing.

[Alex Becker]

Lovely frame Gail -- great head on stare, symmetric wing position, beautiful light and a nice BG to boot. Catchlight is nice. I see a bit of blue in shadows but might be just me. TFS

[Juan Tolentino]

Great looking image Gail, I love the stare and that the bird is flying right at you. Agree with Joe on the catch light. If mine, I'd try a version with the brights purple looking spots on top of the frame removed. Well done and thank you for sharing.


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[keith mitchell]

Gail this lovely owl really pops from that dark BG,missed seeing your images this is a cracker to come back with.

Keith.

[Daniel Cadieux]

Nice light, rich colours, and BG. I love the incoming pose. I suppose you could slightly enhance the current reflection in that shaded eye, but certainly not as bright as the sunlit one.

We missed you!! But also understand that life circumstances have priorities shifting...

[William Dickson]

Welcome back Gail, and a lovely image to return with. Love the stare and the 'darkness' look of the frame. And, more important, well done on caring for your mother. Hope she gets better soon.

Will

[Bill Dix]

Hi Gail. Glad to see you back. Hope your mother is OK, and that you traveled to some wonderful places. I really like the head-on shot. I agree with your decision about the catchlight, but I wonder if lightening the shaded part of the face would help.

[Geoffrey Montagu]

Hi and welcome back, Gail from what I hope was adventurous travel. Hope your mother is doing better. Like this image a lot and I would leave it as you chose to. I like the BG showing a bit of light coming through the tree tops.

Geoffrey




http://500px.com/geoffreymontagu

[Michael Thompson]

Welcome back! Nice flight shot, sharp and nicely lit, I don't mind the shaded parts since it is not to high contrast, nice BG

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hi Gail, glad to see you back again, a fine shot, I lke the lighting but I would brighten the bird's RHS of facial disc just a little using a soft light layer i.e. not using the Dodge tool.

[gail bisson]

Thank you all.
Jonathan- can you explain what you mean by a soft light layer?

[David Salem]

Hi Gail,

Welcome back to the forum! We definitely missed your posts and your thoughtful comments. My Dad is 85 and ill also so I know how you feel. Sucks getting old :(

Nice in flight frame of this SE owl coming right at you. Beautiful light, pose and details in this but as you know, owls eyes are always so tricky to get lit evenly.
If he/she had just turned his/her head to the left just a smidgen, bingo, both eyes would have light up perfectly.

I did a little PS eye and face work that I have used in the past on shadowed shots like this. Let me know what you think.

I know you have been traveling so hopefully you have some more images to share with us.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thank you all.
Jonathan- can you explain what you mean by a soft light layer?

Hi Gail, try this:-
Layers
Alt click New Layer
See the new box appear, in Mode select Soft light from the drop down, then click the box Fill with Soft Light neutral color 50% gray.
Having done this select the Brush Tool, say 5% to begin with, select Foreground and Background colours - white makes things brighter, black the converse (the black and white squares on LHS of the screen in tool bar).
The trick is to brush gradually to achieve the desired effect. This is non destructive and does not affect saturation.
Hope this helps.

[arash_hazeghi]

pretty cool Gail, you did well but the side light was unfortunate, Dave's repost is interesting but I can definitely tell it's a bit unnatural given the strong shadow on the wing and no shadow on the head...can tell something is not right. you can try to raise the shadows but ultimately cannot change the angle of the sun. I got lucky the skies were cloudy when i was there, could shoot from any angle

TFS