Hanging out to dry

[Colin Driscoll]

Little Pied Cormorant
5D4 600 f4 III HH
1/3200 f8 iso500
Manual

Cropped, selective S&H and light sharpen on the bird
NR to BG

[arash_hazeghi]

nice pose, light was a bit harsh. details looks a bit coarse and crunchy most likely from processing

TFS

[Paul Burdett]

Hi Colin: I quite like the look here...almost a metallic look on he wings. Nice pose. White does look a little blown out on the face.

[Colin Driscoll]

You've got me puzzled with the crunchy detail comment Ari. I did virtually no PP on this only using Unsharp Mask.
Crop was about 50%.

[David Roach]

I love the spotlight feel of this canvas. I would only wish to coax a little more detail out of the white on the head. I love it as is though. TFS

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Colin .. good posing and the light was not on your side , in terms of softness .
Overall I think the contrast is too high .... you have detail loss in HL and shadows .
The overall detail is not very fine .. should be better with the given techs .

You say you did no PP apart from USM ... ? There are so many variables in the process ... that can cause the " coarse appearance " which is Arash referring to .

At least you did something in the raw converter and something in PS .... so you edited the image and not only sharpened it . What means selective S&H ... for you and more important which tool have you used ??
Most of your files are looking hammered with contrast .... I would ask myself .... is that necessary ? Unless you like the harsh way ... up to you .
Do you use DPP for conversion ? Just zero everything in DPP that is going along with contrast .... as a staring point . And then build gradually the file for export to photoshop .... stay away from any AUTO button , Just my take .
Stay away from any other `picture style `than neutral/faihtful .... stay away from the gamma menu ( specially the black and white points are killers !!! )
Drop contrast to -4 / saturation to -2
Achieve correct WB with the temp slider , and tweak the hue sliders accordingly to taste .
Correct the expose if needed

Now you have the best starting point .... to build up , color , tone and contrast . ( within DPP )

The blacks slider is never your friend ( does not matter which piece of software ) .... always hides fine details !!! If you want to use it .... just use it at the very end of the process.

Well Colin .... this is for sure not the Bible and I am not a GURU .... others might think that about themselves . Me not .... it is just my way and approach to control all tonal and color elements in an image .

Just try it

TFS Andreas

[John Mack]

The pose is nice. The title matches this frame very well.

[Colin Driscoll]

Here it is with minimal PP.
DPP4 Sharpness 3, Brightness 0.3.
PS2020 cropped, cloned some bright bits from the rock.
No other actions! Normally I would mask the bird and run NR on the BG.

Thanks for the comments and advice, appreciated.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Colin .... I would ask myself , why is there no detail in the blacks and hardly any in the 3/4 tones ???

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Collin, I wonder if your monitor is bad ? the mage has 0 details in black ...

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Colin .... thanks for the file to have a look .

The original has two major issues for me ... underexposing and subject small in the frame , followed by hefty cropping . Not ideal for a great output .

I tried to get the most out of it ( well for me ) ... might not meet other folks taste .

But judge yourself !!!

Cheers Andreas

[arash_hazeghi]

I worked on Collin's file, as Andreas mentioned above it is a huge crop and the light was coming from the wrong side so the dark feathers near the tail have zero detail in RAW. This is an image that shouldn't have been taken at first place (nothing can solve the harsh light problem and the heavy crop) but nevertheless I improved it a bit. I followed the exact steps outlines in the DPP4 guide then I applied NR using Neat Image in PS downsized and applied smart sharpen.


I think the crunchy and paintery look in Collins images stems from the fact that he is using a KVM switch with his motor thus he isn't able to see the image properly



hope this helps