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Eastern Grey Kangaroo
Taken close to home while out on a short walk. The roo was lounging and feeding in the long grass and was keeping a wary eye on me. I enjoyed playing around with this in Silver Efex Pro and certainly am reminded how much more can be done in the 'digital' darkroom (with instant feedback) than the hundreds of hours I must have spent in a darkroom in my old film days. I have deliberately gone for a flatter tonal range across the animal but with detail enhanced. A couple of bright OOF grass stems have been toned down and a tiny bit of blur applied to the grass. A little taken off the top, left and right for this composition.
As usual, I thank you for taking a look and any comments you may have.
Technical: Canon 80D with Lens EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM at 400mm handheld. Manual exposure 1/1000, f7.1, ISO 640. Processed in Canon DPP 4 (digital lens optimiser @ 50, Sharpness = 3, crop, lighting adjustments, default NR) then exported 16 bit TIFF to Photoshop Elements and Nik Silver Effects Pro plug-in where B&W conversion and toning performed: reddish silver tone and very modest yellowish tone for paper. Sharpened (sharpness function: remove Gaussian blur, radius = 0.4 pixels, 50%) after final size reduction.
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Lifetime Member
Hi Glenn - I like the look and feel of the head surrounded by the grasses. The eye looks great. Based on your intro, you've accomplished your vision for the image. Glad you enjoyed playing around for the theme. That's one of the purposes of the themes to get people to experiment and explore, sometimes stepping out of their comfort zone, and sometimes in pp and others in the field. If it were my image, I would tone down the large oof brighter blade of grass between the roo and the left edge of the frame.
TFS,
Rachel
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BPN Member
Hi Glenn i am with you ...that you play around !!
If you not try ...you never know .
I like the shot as taken with the Roo in the high grass , just the head sticking out and chew some grass stems ...very nice shot. you have the right amount of DOF .
The toning and conversion are looking good to me ...not too fuzzed about the detail extraction .And some areas are looking too flat for my taste .
Well but this is just my view .
TFS Andreas
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Thanks Rachel and Andreas. Yes, I did enjoy playing around in Silver Efex. A lot of fun so thank you all for this theme. For interest, here is another version I did with a more classical full tone look but I just didn't like it as much. Be interesting to hear what you think. BTW, I have already toned down that blade of grass, Rachel - just not as much as you are suggesting! Forgot to tone down the foreground blade in the RP though so please ignore.
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Story Sequences Moderator and Wildlife Moderator
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Many thanks again Gabriela. Here's the colour version requested although I haven't spent a lot of time working on this version. I forgot to mention also that I added a light vignette to the toned versions but none here in the colour version.
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Wildlife Moderator
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Originally Posted by
Steve Kaluski
Hi Glenn, just be careful that in using the presets it works when using SilverEfex, occasionally they work, but to me it doesn't bring anything new to the image if you just click one preset and so you may find layers of different effects and opacities work, offering more of a creative input, so you
'build' the image. I stopped using it a long time ago and it will cease at some point, I much prefer creating it through PS and the various directions it can take you, but just my take
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Thanks Steve, as mentioned, the OP tone range was a deliberate choice as I liked the effect but accept it was a 'brave' decision that won't be popular with everyone. I spent most of my life working in B&W and have evolved my taste over that time. I guess I have to present it the way I like it accepting there will be disagreements. I guess that's why I posted the alternative toned version to show a more traditional approach. I do think the colour version works quite well too and appreciate your view on this. Tighter crop is good too. My OP aimed to show the animal in a 'sea of grass', so was a particular effect I was after... but maybe I shouldn't have pulled back even more for that?
As for Silver Efex, I did not use the presets and accept 'as is' but went into the standard conversion then played with the various sliders to control tone, detail and toning colour to achieve this effect. So not entirely sure what your suggestion was on using it? The control I was able to have was quite good, I thought. As PSE alone doesn't have this level of sophistication for conversions as far as I can see, I guess I'll stick with Silver Efex for now.
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Wildlife Moderator
Hi Glenn, all I was suggesting was that not just one 'effect' may be the answer. By applying other options you may find the background is beeter in one, but the subject in another and so you blend the two, or three etc...
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Originally Posted by
Steve Kaluski
Hi Glenn, all I was suggesting was that not just one 'effect' may be the answer. By applying other options you may find the background is beeter in one, but the subject in another and so you blend the two, or three etc...
Got it now, thanks Steve. I'll look into it.
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Wildlife Moderator
No worries Glenn, I think what you said is where I'm going, tweak the recipes/options, don't always settle for pre-sets.
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