Closer view on the Walrus

[Gerald Kelberg]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on my previous Walrus post.

This image was made on the same occasion; same Walrus. This time, the zodiac had drifted closer to the ice edge and the Walrus got so excited that he opened one eye!

As previously, image was taken with the Sony A9II, FE200-600, at 600mm. Shutter speed 1/1000 sec at f/10, ISO1250.

In Lightroom with Landscape profile, I have levelled and cropped the image (very slight), adjusted WB, added to Whites and slightly darkened shadows. Local adjustments to the tone of the face (lighter) and body (darker). Light Manual NR until the eye was clean. Point color to slightly desaturate the pink on the skin.

Then in PS, resized and sharpened for output.

I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions.

Gerald

[Gerald Kelberg]

After posting I looked again and decided that I hadn't achieved my intent in bringing out the blues in the water. In effect, I had just made all the whites more blue.

So here is another run at it!

Thanks for your understanding.

Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gerald, great minds, I took a very similar one, but the Walrus wasn't so cooperative, nor did I get so low, so well done in achieving this.

Overall it's looking a bit pink (magenta), and being rather overcast I might suggest the water ice is more green/grey. Techs again I might have upped the SS as pervious.

Overall the subject needs a little more sharpening and colours a bit more 'neutral' the colour picker is great for the brown of the walrus and I might suggest cropping a little off the RHS.

Love the sad look, he looks like he's crying with the tears and the tusks in the water are a cool touch.

TFS
Steve

[Jonathan Ashton]

I haven't seen these animals in the wild so I am unable to comment on the colours but I like the composition and the pose very much.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I needed to go back and pretty much start over with the raw file and try to understand and weed out where I was adding errors to the file. I found a number of weeds and I hope with this file, I have now gotten rid of most of them.

Some techniques I need to work on still but I'm here to learn.

On the question of the colour of the water, I have made it slightly less blue but it is still a bit of "creative licence"!

If you have any thoughts, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Thanks, Gerald

[Steve Kaluski]

Sorry Gerald, it's gone in the opposite direction. Hopefully you created a Virtual copy and worked on that for the RP, its all very dark.

If you go back to you original and I suggest just lightening things a wee bit, but its very hard to second guess, then make any further adjustments. Sharpening looks better,