On the Rocks

[Brian Sump]

Hi all, out on a recent shoot at the world famous Red Rocks ampitheater near my home in Golden, I came across this little scrapper climbing up a rock cliff a bit above me.

You all are world class in terms of wildlife processing so I appreciate any feedback as to how to improve..

Canon R5
840mm
Handheld
ISO 2500
1/1000
f8

LR and PS. Evicted two extra catchlights in the eye.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Brian, nice to see you dipping you toes into this pond for a change.

You all are world class in terms of wildlife processing so I appreciate any feedback as to how to improve..

I think you are trying to run Brian, and perhaps just taking a few step back may help??? If you look at the images they are all IMHO suffering from a lack of separation, as if they are all brushed with the same colour and tone so its just the shape & contours that are offering the separation as so going back to the first step, get the WB right. You know how to do that, I measured off the grey rock below the front paw, this totally changes things, you then have FG, subject, BKG. After that you can change the colours accordingly to suit, that's it.

Now I added a Curves mid tones, tweaked the FG, you know how in Lr. Job done.

Sharpening looks OK as presented, but the head doesn't quite have the finer detail compared to the rear hip & tail so... The diagonal rock offers a strong composition and the BKG colours work within the overall colour pallet. How much of a crop?

Brian, this is based on the above, colours are all subject, but hopefully this may help illustrate what I mean about separation.

TFS
Steve

[Brian Sump]

Steve, thanks for the comments.

Good call on the WB adjustment and point received on separation. On bird photographs I typically pull back into LR for a final WB adjust - of course to ensure red and greens are in check and yellows are relative to the light at the time of capture. I did not take that step here, which makes a notable difference.

RE colors, the only color enhancements I do are using existing colors in the frame, then just punching them up a bit.

I see your position on the head details. FP was on the eye but the selective sharpening could be adjusted/reapplied better.

Crop was from 8100 to ~ 6k pixels on the long edge, so not too substantial.

[John Mack]

Nice frame of this squirrel. I do like the framing and the diaganol line the rock creates. The colors are great in the background.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Super colours, I like the foreground and background as is but I think the repost is better for the squirrel (but not the foreground /background).

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dear Brian,

First of all, thank you so much for your contribution here in the Wildlife Forum, much appreciated!
Lovely pose from this little one and framing works well, really like the clean background. Good thinking on DoF as well as techs overall.
Always difficult to comment on colours when one has not seen the species in real life... But I do understand Steve's comment on the 'lack of separation' and I think his RP has a more natural 'look and feel' after correcting WB.
Nice image design and I like the 'perch' with all its colours and lichen. A very attractive frame and I took great pleasure viewing, hope to see more from you

Kind regards,