Carolina Chickadee

[Michael Lloyd]

I spent the morning photographing these little guys in a sunflower patch in my back yard.

[Arthur Morris]

Nice pose and COMP but mega-too much contrast with likely blown whites...

[Arthur Morris]

Correctamundo. Notice that the whites are pegged on the right (very bad) and the blacks are pegged on the left (contrast too high). Note also that all the whites are at 255. Not good.

Can you re-covnert this darker and post it without any processing?

[Michael Lloyd]

Thank you Arthur... the whites aren't blown in the RAW file but I was a little heavy handed with one of my actions. It tends to boost contrast and most of the time that's ok. Not so ok this time :o) I'll redo it and repost. Thanks again for the critique.

I reworked it with considerably less PP (like no contrast boosting action at all). Sometimes I get in "robot mode" and click away merrily without looking at the damage I'm doing LOL

I also got overzealous with the sharpening.

Better?

[Michael Lloyd]

What are the rules here about posting a second image. ? I can post an untouched version of the original (other than crop) if it's ok

[Maxis Gamez]

What are the rules here about posting a second image. ? I can post an untouched version of the original (other than crop) if it's ok

Sure Michael, I would love the see it!

[Arthur Morris]

What are the rules here about posting a second image. ? I can post an untouched version of the original (other than crop) if it's ok

We allow as many reposts as it takes to get it right. Problem is, now that you have taken down the ORIG post I look like a dummy :) :D :)

Please re-post the first one that you posted and then post the re-worked image in a new pane. Thanks.

[Arthur Morris]

Also, please post the tech-specs: lens, camera, EXP, film, etc. Thanks.

[Michael Lloyd]

LOL Can't have that. I'll put the disaster back and post correction within the first reply and attach untouched (sort of) file here.

ACR settings (I feel like I'm a guest and I left my underwear on the bathroom floor :)) )-

WB- used white balance dropper on the tail feathers 5550 and +2
White point: +0.2
Recovery: 0
Fill: 0
Blacks: 4
Brightness: +9
Contrast: +30
Clarity: +11
Vibrance: +15
Saturation: +20

Camera: EOS1DsMKIII
Lens: 600 f4 tripod / Wimberley
Distance. Nearly min. focus (about 13' ish)
ISO: 500
Manual
1/640s
F4.0
About 50% crop.

[Michael Lloyd]

OK.. all should be back like it was plus a little

Thanks again for the help

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Michael,
You guys are making me dizzy following this one. I'll comment on a crop recommendation.......just some off the top.......above the small green bloom leaf that the bird is sitting on. Bg is pretty busy.......but I do love the OOF bloom on the left.

[Michael Lloyd]

:) I like your suggestion Roman. The funny thing is, I think I have a better image of the bird, better pose, etc but the sky is blown (bird isn't) so I put this one up instead... of course I didn't notice that I completely hosed the image up during PP until Arthur pointed it out. Actions are cool... but they have to be used prudently :)

[Arthur Morris]

Much better on the repost but a good deal of the whites are still toasted. Can you convert it darker and post that JPEG? This seems to be a rampant problem here the past few days. Folks need to learn to check the highlight alerts before converting... Nine times out of ten bright or over-exposed highlights can be recovered... Once you have blown highlights after conversion they can pretty much never be fixed (aside from covering them...)

[Michael Lloyd]

Hmm... OK... let me go at it again (I really appreciate your time on this because blown highlights are often a problem for me). It's not blown in the RAW file so whatever I'm doing to it (I thought nothing) is causing the problem. I'm working with a large TIF...

wait.. hold that thought... better yet discard that thought... I hosed it up with ACR! I pushed the white point to the edge with the +0.2 adjustment. It didn't need that (more robot processing).

Once more to the breech...

I'll post again in a bit...

THANKS!!!!

[Michael Lloyd]

OK. This has very little done to it. All stats are the same except White point adjustment is now at 0. I should note that my Save L10 action applies an unsharp mask to the image with these values- Amount: 50%, Radius: 1 px, and Threshold 0. I also apply Noiseware Pro to it before converting to JPG. Crop is actually around 70% of FF

[Amy DeStefanis]

Hi Michael. This thread has been a really good one. I really like the last post best.

Thanks for posting, updating, and reposting!

Amy D.

[Dave Phillips]

nobody mentions that this is also posted in AdobeRGB colorspace.....will present much converted to sRGB
for non color managed browsers.

nice catch Michael
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_...Gprofiles.html

[Michael Lloyd]

Hi Michael. This thread has been a really good one. I really like the last post best.

Thanks for posting, updating, and reposting!

Amy D.

Thanks Amy. I have to admit that the improvement was worth the effort. If it helps anyone else then that's even better.

[Michael Lloyd]

My apologies for beating this to death but I didn't give Roman's suggestion enough thought. Mostly because I spent the last week dealing with my daughter's wedding :) Now that that's over I can get back to real life (and subtracting from my bank account).

Personally I prefer this version over all of the others (thanks Roman) but I would like to hear what others think.