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Thread: Common Tern with prey

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    Default Common Tern with prey

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    This Common Tern was photographed late last summer while it was flying back with food for its hungry fledgling. From Great Kills Park in Staten Island, New York.

    Canon 1DX and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4x iii. ISO 400, SS 1/2500, F8 Hand Held

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    Isaac - I like the detail in the whites under the wings, and the detail in the blacks in the head and eye. Nice to have the fish's face in focus as well. I like the catch light in the birds eye as well. The composition works for me.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Good flight shot, well exposed. The wing angle gives a sense of speed to the tern. Nice of him to turn the fish in the right direction.

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    A fine shot indeed, good light angle and colours look great. The fish certainly adds (maybe a luminosity mask would reveal a little more in the fish?)
    If it were mine I would have lowered contrast at raw just a tad and I would have lowered the brightest highlights and lifted the darkest plumage - again only a small amount.

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    Lifetime Member Stu Bowie's Avatar
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    Hi Isaac, well exposed on the whites, as the feather detail and plumage show up nicely. The black cap looks good to, as it always seems to hide their eyes, but all looks good from here. His catch a bonus and with a visible eye. Overall, nice and sharp too.

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    Jonathan I just realized something that I never knew. I wonder if others have seen this or how they deal with this. Was just processing a shorebird image and after I read your comments on this image it spurred me to check something. I checked in levels if I had any hot areas when done processing the file and just before it was sharpened. Levels were fine and black and white point were not hot/blocked. But then after I sharpened it at .5 and 100 with smart sharpen as I do almost all of my files I checked the white and black point again and there was some clipping in white and black point. So something happened with the sharpening that caused that and I honestly never check after I sharpen the file because I check while processing the file. I suspect that is why if this file is brought into PS that you can see some clipping that is not there on the pre sharpened full res tiff. Long story short what is up with that? Has anyone ever noticed this before? This sounds like an issue that all of us need to be checking. With regards to this file, I am very careful to have bright white whites but not have them clipped. I think that once you apply too much highlights adjustments that the whites just get too grayed out and do not look natural. So I keep them near the limit without blowing them. But then the sharpening has somehow brought them over the top. Just went back and checked the unsharpened TIFF and there was not clipping. But then after I sharpened there was clipping. Not a ton but it was there. Anyone else experience this?

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    Macro and Flora Moderator Jonathan Ashton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Isaac Grant View Post
    Jonathan I just realized something that I never knew. I wonder if others have seen this or how they deal with this. Was just processing a shorebird image and after I read your comments on this image it spurred me to check something. I checked in levels if I had any hot areas when done processing the file and just before it was sharpened. Levels were fine and black and white point were not hot/blocked. But then after I sharpened it at .5 and 100 with smart sharpen as I do almost all of my files I checked the white and black point again and there was some clipping in white and black point. So something happened with the sharpening that caused that and I honestly never check after I sharpen the file because I check while processing the file. I suspect that is why if this file is brought into PS that you can see some clipping that is not there on the pre sharpened full res tiff. Long story short what is up with that? Has anyone ever noticed this before? This sounds like an issue that all of us need to be checking. With regards to this file, I am very careful to have bright white whites but not have them clipped. I think that once you apply too much highlights adjustments that the whites just get too grayed out and do not look natural. So I keep them near the limit without blowing them. But then the sharpening has somehow brought them over the top. Just went back and checked the unsharpened TIFF and there was not clipping. But then after I sharpened there was clipping. Not a ton but it was there. Anyone else experience this?
    Isaac I used to find this regularly that's partly why I mentioned the highs and lows.......when you sharpen do you set the mode to Luminosity? (If not try it)

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    Never do Jonathan and don't know how. Why do you use that mode? What is the advantage? I honestly don't mind if the image is a touch hot in the brightest whites as I know the full res version is not.

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    BPN Member Bill Dix's Avatar
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    Isaac, I have experienced just what you describe. I usually try to keep the whites in the unsharpened file in the range of 235-240 so they won't get fried after sharpening. When I sharpen I use SmartSharpen on a layer and can then use the Eraser tool at 25% or so to take off any over-bright edges or areas. That said, I have admired the bright whites in your images and have been guilty of over-using highlight adjustment to the point of losing that nice super-whiteness that you usually get.

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    nice with good fish face

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    Nice detail. Like how you can see the fish's eye.

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    There is a fine line between nice white whites and overly bright whites. I like keeping most of them in that 240ish range but have some of the brightest whites in the 250 range. Meaning just a small amount close to the edge of the histogram. Those are the ones that I guess get a touch hot when sharpened. Honestly I do not mind that at all because I do not think it is really an issue that our eyes can detect. It is more an issue that PS detects. When shooting in full sun reality is that whites look nice and white. I do feel there is a tendency as you describe Bill to concentrate too much on the highlights and not enough on the whiteness of the whites. Not sure what to say about sharpening in luminosity mode. I don't think that using smart sharpen is really introducing color noise but it is taking the brightest whites and making them a touch hot.

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    Great in flight pose with good detail and prey item. I like the blurred wing tips -- I always think that adds to the frame. Hint of clouds is good. I've experienced what you're mentioning in regard to the whites and sharpening but haven't investigated it further. Catchlight is good. TFS -- can't wait to have these terns back

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    Super Moderator Daniel Cadieux's Avatar
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    Nice profile flight image! I love the fish too. Lots of good details. I almost never use the shadow/highlights in PS, or other "automatic" highlights adjustments - I much prefer to use the burn tool. Set it with a soft brush (30% or so) and an exposure of around 6 to 8% - paint in small circles while holding the left mouse button down. Repeat if necessary. Even if the whites are bright, set that burn tool to "midtones". The difference is subtle but it is there, and I like the result most of the time.

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    I agree Dan. I rarely use the shadow/highlight adjuster. Most times I do what you describe as well. But there are times where I do use the shadow/highlight adjuster I will set the highlights to no more than 30px with the 2 sliders lower than 10% so they are minor adjustments. I do think that all of those adjustments do have an impact on the whites though, even burning at a low opacity and set to midtones.

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    Lifetime Member David Salem's Avatar
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    The first thing I thought to myself when I first opened up the image is how well the exposure looked on this Tern in flight.
    The whites are exposed properly and the blacks look pretty darn good too. Not that easy to do. Nice color and good details in the head also. The fish is perfectly placed and it's a whopper to boot!
    The light angle is a bit off, a little to far to the left creating the shadow on the wing, but that can't always be helped when shooting erratic moving subjects like Terns.
    The most important thing in getting a good Tern image IMO, besides not getting large heavy shadows, is getting the exposure right and getting nice detail in the black head.
    With a black head, and a black eye, the subtle difference in the black color between the head and eye is only seen when the "Blacks" are exposed properly.
    I shoot Terns quite a bit during the summers, and log thousands of frames a summer of Terns in flight and I find my self weeding out everything that isn't exposed well for the blacks. I feel proper exposure for the blacks is critical in a nice Tern image. It's a fine line in-between blowing out the whites and blocking the blacks.
    I tend to shoot Terns a little hot, maybe 10% of the white area of the bird flashing on the highlight alert.
    Normally this flashing area isn't actually fried, it is just about to clip, that's why its an alert. You have to think about the darks as much as the whites.
    If done properly, you will easily reduce the slightly hot whites, which are usually only in a small area, and still have great detail in the blacks, creating nice segregation between the head the eye. And you will have white whites. I find I get better results than exposing only for the whites and then trying to bring the blacks back. Terns and Skinners get noisy very easily and lose detail in the eye so I have found this to work the best for me.
    I have seen many frames of Trens with no definition between the head and the eye. i'm sure you have too. If you can't make out the eye on a subject, you lose the personal attachment to the image and it doesn't create emotion and an impact on the viewer. Eye contact is almost everything in a great avian photo.
    I firmly believe in keeping the whites white as Issac mentioned and it's another real important part of good capturing and processing of avian images.
    A lot of birds have white in them, and an a lot of them are very white. If you look at a white bird with binoculars on a nice sunny morning, it would be a nice clean white, and it would be nice and bright too. Not blown out to your eyes, just bright white. When you look at the bird closely, you will see all the beautiful feather detail too.
    Perfect clean whites are white, not grayish.
    I use all of the methods described above in taming whites but I like to tame them early on in LR using the adjustment brush(K). Not only dose it enable you to paint only the area that you want to reduce the whites, or almost any major parameter, you can use many different parameters like highlights, whites, exposure and contrast all in the same swipe. I can also increase or decrease any one of those parameters and look at the results before I finalize that step. After LR I may do some fine tuning in PS if needed with the burn tool turned way down, but as Issac mentioned, be very careful with the burn tool, it very easily creates grey whites, even at 3-5%
    Last edited by David Salem; 04-10-2018 at 12:35 AM.
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    BPN Member William Dickson's Avatar
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    Looking real good Isaac. lovely flight pose, and nice control of the blacks and whites. I can't wait till they arrive home to the Isle of May for nesting.

    Will

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