Processing challenge: taken yesterday at ISO800 in our typical Nov overcast gloomy skies. Despite manual metering and Ev + attempts, the Raw image has the bird slightly underexposed.
I have not yet learned masking techniques. In order to avoid a white sky, I ueed the magic wand and inverse selection to apply S/H to lighten up the bird only. The result is digital noise in the bird. I assume once I learn quick masks, I can just use curves on the bird and avoid much of the noise?
Last edited by Jeff Nadler; 11-12-2008 at 08:52 AM.
Would you mind sharing your settings? Apart from the digital gurus in this forum, you can also get pointers towards the metering. By the way, I like the pose.
Hi Jeff, I'm wondering why you weren't able to meter the bird correctly in manual...was it because you were pushing the limits of "acceptable" shutter speeds for flight photography, even at wide open? Just curious.
Depending on the severity of underexposure I've found that colour noise is introduced no matter what technique is used in post processing to push the darks back to where they should be. You could use noise reduction software...most plug-ins (e.g. Noise Ninja, Noiseware) offer colour noise reduction. I'll also be interested to see if some have suggestions - but of course nothing beats getting it right in-camera :-)
As for the image, I like the screaming pose and nice view of the underwing patterns
[quote=Daniel Cadieux;167433]Hi Jeff, I'm wondering why you weren't able to meter the bird correctly in manual...was it because you were pushing the limits of "acceptable" shutter speeds for flight photography, even at wide open? Just curious.
Perhaps a poor decision, but I did not want a bright white high key sky made out of the cumulous cloud mix. I might have made the bird better exposed but then had a high key image that I really dislike. So I ended up using ev plus 2 and that still wasn't good enough. i own noise Ninja but find that noise reduction sacrifices too much detail.
I hear you on the gloomy skies. Depressing time of year around here too, as its been days since a hint of sunshine.
Well done. I agree that underexposure of the bird itself has always given me noise to deal with if I use S/H to brighten it up. Given the often uneven appearance of noise in an image from bright to darker areas, I often selectively use Noise Ninja after the fact to clean up noisy portions of an image.
Great shot...face looks nice and sharp to me on my laptop...I am no master with masking either but there is a quick little guide in the November Outdoor Photographer issue that covers brightening/emphasizing your subject (pg. 73). Nothing in depth, but a helpful little how to. I am sure Artie has some techniques as well. Nate.
Squakin huntin harrier
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