Arctic Tern Preening

[gail bisson]

Taken in Iceland June 2019. Another cloudy dark day
Canon 1 dx 600m v 3 and 1.4x version 3
ISO 2000 SS 1/2500 f 6.3
Crop to 70% FF. I have room on top and right only.I could see a version with some off bottom and more on top. Thoughts?
Nothing added or cloned.
Reduced the saturation of the greens and yellows in the BG, NR to BG and shadows decreased under belly with some NR to the belly. Increased exposure by 1/4 stop. Had to be careful not to blow out the whites on tail and cheek.
Comments and critiques always appreciated and learned from with thanks,
Gail

[Alex Becker]

Such a nice pose Gail. Exposure looks good. I'm ok with the crop as is, but agree a bit more off bottom and more on top could work as the perch is not as impressive as the behavior, although it's worn enough that I don't really mind it. Nice BG too. TFS

[arash_hazeghi]

I like the pose and the BG but the perch is holding it back. there is a bit of noise in the belly and the red in the feet look too saturated and the whites are a bit grey to my eye but I have never been to iceland so it could be the local variations

TFS

[Bill Dix]

Love the way the tern is holding a tail feather. I would agree that a bit off the bottom could help, but I don't see any need to add any to the top. I don't know about Canon but Nikon does sometimes exaggerate the reds and requires some desaturation. However, Arctic Terns' feet and bills can indeed be very red under some light conditions, so this may be OK. The eye looks a bit cloudy to me. Don't know if some eye doctor work, brightening the iris and darkening the pupil, would work here.

[Moe Richard]

Excellent job with the exposure especially on the eye. Interesting pose and effective background. On for cropping a little off the bottom and a little off the top and maybe even decentering a little bit.

[John Mack]

Love the pose here with that single feather being preened. The background is pretty nice. I don't really mind the perch at all.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gail, I really like this, especially the curvature of the feathers and the use of the bill to preen. The Icelandic folk also think about perches it seems too, compared to the pegs they pepper the Farne islands with that are less than photogenic.

Increased exposure by 1/4 stop.

Gail if you are using ETTR and pushing way to the right on that Histogram without blowing/clipping the whites then rarely should you need to open/lift the image, more perhaps dropping the exposure which doesn't then introduce any noise, but at ISO2000 it should be minimal.

I agree with Arash, re the colour, but just for comparison as I think you use LR or ACR, this is where understanding and not allowing Adobe to added extra Contrast behind the scenes helps before you even start to process, everything is cleaner, not so 'sooty' looking and choosing the correct WB 'Profile' rather than say the heavily coloured options like Adobe colour. I therefore wonder Arash if it's more the Contrast effect, rather than noise you are seeing?

Bill I find Canon add Blue/Magenta at times, but subject to the shooting scene, Nikon was always the Greeens, not sure about the reds?

TFS
Steve

[gail bisson]

Hi Steve,
Well I got to say that you nailed the problem on the head with this image. I use Adobe Standard for my profile in LR 95% of the time but for some reason I did not change the color profile and left it on Adobe Color. As soon as I toggled between the 2 images the whites became brighter and the greens and reds more muted.
So what else did you do to the image? Did you really lower the exposure?
Arash, you are correct about the whites being gray. Will do a repost. And thanks for the eyes on this image.
Because I used the different profile I did not have to desaturate the greens and yellows.
Gail

[Krishna Prasad kotti]

Striking image. I love the tail feathers..
TFS

[Dorian Anderson]

Interesting processing discussion! Preening shots rarely work for me, but this one does because we can see the eye/face so well. Gotta love the lone feather in the beak - perfect!

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gail, as I said many times, the last BIG update LR did was considered a big mistake. Whereas before going to Camera Calibration and changing the profile there for a 'even' start to colour, Adobe have introduced these appalling Filters. I'm glad you change to Adobe Stabdard or Landscape these are the better options and less 'Walt Disney', but if folk want heavily Saturated, Contrasty images with no real reference to the original capture then fine, would love to see them print the image and see how it matches to screen... I prefer a more gentler start.

Regarding the image I basically reduced contrast, black and use the Tonal Curve, so without a light hand and with LR adding contrast into an image at the start, it can impeed the image and hide/mask the detail, and so when folks talk about ramping up Contrast, Blacks, Clarity etc and they then loose detail so they ramp up sharpening and whatever, it just kills the whole image because the midtones are choked and that is where your detail is. So it's just about learning to go negative or positive (subject to the slider ie Contrast -, Black +, Clarity...) in the Exposure module, then in PS being more critical/specific in adding say 'Contrast' in what every way that might be, but where you can use layers & masks to apply that adjustment.

To me you added Contrast as a Global adjustment in what ever % amount that might be, but ISO, adding any Clarity/Dehaze/Texture, slightly lightening the image, sharpening it all just adds up. Again as I have said before, unlike Nikon, Canon files are 'dirty, more contrasty in their nature, not clean' so you are already on the back foot, but no need to migrate and so you may find, applying things like Contrast is better done in PSCC where you have control and more options to play with in delivering that. That said for example, you could export the file with minimal adjustments in LR as a Smart Object to PS and the then go back into LR via a copy of the Smart object and tweak that and sent it to PS where you can make a composite to the work on, there are many options.

Personally I will do my Global changes in LR, Export to PS make the refinements there, save back to LR and if I need too, do some more changes again in LR on that Tiff that I could not do in PS, so it's all just a constant flux, but under one roof and both the Raw & Tiff and filed beside each other for easy reference and for any further tweaks.

Try to keep your files as 'open' as possible, with minimal adjustments and if you don't need to add the kitchen sink then don't.

Steve