Zebra

[Dorian Anderson]

Another shot from my ZA trip in late-Oct. The overhead lighting was a bit harsh late on this morning, so I went with a B+W rendering since
the grass wasn't as golden as is was earlier in the day. I also thought the black stripes would crack in the high key surrounds.

Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II on EOS R5
1/4000 at f/2.8, ISO 800
Processed in LR CC and a very light pass through Topaz

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Dorian. A very nice portrait of the Zebra and the B&W conversion works well here given the lighting conditions. Good details in the coat and the eye. TFS.

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like it good details in the zebra, I would be inclined to lower the exposure or overall brightness of the background, I think it competes with the subject as is.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Dorian, have to agree with Jon on his observations, but a good call on going B/W. The black strips on the neck look odd, as if you have lightened the blacks, the hairs in the inner ears are over sharpened, likewise the eye has been doctored too. Adjustments when applied never should be seen, but are just the behinds tapestry that can often be required to help the image.

very light pass through Topaz

Topaz at ISO 800, just a pure waste of time and not logical, unless under exposed, R5 at ISO800 are as clean as a whistle and gorgeous to work with. This is probably why the hairs of the inner ear appear over sharpened. Seriously it's just bad practice on ISO so low Dorian, just skip that part, as the file will be better fort it.

TFS
Steve

[Dorian Anderson]

Steve

I actually dropped global exposure by 0.3 stops and additionally darkened the blacks for more contrast. Eye wasn't touched beyond what was done to rest of image. But will look into the sharpening and background concerns. Thanks.

This represents ~25% of original frame, so noise was visible. If FF at ISO 800, I agree Topaz doesn't help, but I usually apply between 5-10 points of denoise in Topaz when I need to crop (which you never seem to do).

Cheers

[Steve Kaluski]

I actually dropped global exposure by 0.3 stops and additionally darkened the blacks for more contrast.

Hi Dorian, a third of a stop is nothing, it's these dark slits you see in the vertical steps of the neck juxtapose to the 'dark grey' stripes that looks odd, normally it's very dark black, not solid but visually you see it as a black, but probably 90-95% black.

I agree Topaz doesn't help, but I usually apply between 5-10 points of denoise in Topaz when I need to crop (which you never seem to do).

OK, NR was always applied to the raw prior to outputting as a 'baked tiff' to PS, hence why it's the last Dev module in most raw convertors. Then about two years ago Topaz was launch and with it's ongoing development you can use it pre or post export to a degree IMHO. However it is for Noise reduction, but folk have decided to use it as an almost baked in application, wether they need it or not, basically through ignorance. It should only be applied at greater ISO ranges, but applying it at output for web stage is not great, apply it at the full size resolution as probably the first adjustment you do after exporting to PS. I always apply NR at the raw stage prior to exporting to PS, old habits. Then you crop to the required output size after making all your further adjustments, (basically you end up with a PSD file with all your various adjustment which you NEVER flatten) flatten and Save as, then sharpen the file only at this stage, retaining your master file for any further adjustment and or outputs.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dorian .... nice to see a B&W and good to see you are pushing your comfort zone !!!
Nice basic portrait of the Zebra .
This looks like a straight forward B&W conversion .... for a real cool B&W image i think one needs to put more effort into the tones and details to make this a real cool shot . Do not want to sound too negative .... hope that is ok for you .
Just being honest ...and B&W imagery is a real tough business , very often i do struggle myself to create something great .

TFS Andreas

[Dorian Anderson]

My workflow is as follows - I open RAW in LR and do basics like crop, color balance, exposure, highlights, shadows, etc. I then export to Topaz as a full-sized tiff, do the NR, and shoot the noise-reduced tiff back into LR for everything else. After playing with sat, vib, and curves and applying sharpening, I export for web (with additional output sharpening). There is no PS involved because I don't know how to use it. So, given the workflow I'm using, should I be deploying Topaz at a different point? Thanks.

Also, what is the different between a tiff and baked tiff?