Dove

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Techs:
Canon 40D
Canon 400 MM 5.6 prime
Gitzo 3530LS
Mongoose
EV=-1/3
ISO=800
f/6.3
Subject distance 15 feet
Morning light

Workflow:
CR2---->LRII (slight crop)---TIFF-->NN (one pass noise reduction on BR only - color only)---TIFF-->CS4 (sharpen and lighten eye)---JPEG

Not the most exciting picture, I loved the colors and smooth lines - what say you?

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Jeff,
I like the image and capture. The dark background tones and hues, compliment your subject very well. You display a good head angle with a clear sharp eye...I did a few adjustments to your base image to enhance the composition a wee bit. I cropped from the left side of your frame to off set the bird more, also cropped some of the negative space from the top. I increased the saturation and contrast levels to bring out the colors and the details in the feathers more. also selective sharpened the eye and opened up the mid-tones...see if this presents best to you...:cool:

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Gus,

Great job, you have great vision. Three questions please sir:
1. When you say "increase the contrast", is it as simple as bumping up the knob in a program like LRII?
2. How did you get the repost to be a smaller image footprint (looks to be better quality as well). Did you set the height & width smaller than 1024x800?
3. How does one open up the mid-tones.

I am not suggesting you teach me all the tricks it took you years to learn. However, could you give me some directional advise, thanks.

J$

[Lance Peters]

HI Jeff - Gus has covered the Techs - the repost is a improvement, BG compliments the bird very well.

Keep them coming :)

[Harold Davis]

i like the reposted crop and the bird looks nice too. i would tone down the saturation of the bg a little for my tastes. looks TOO green.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Hi Jeff, like the crop by Gus. Not sure about all the saturation to the bird though. For posts your longest length should be 800. Landscapes can go up to 1024. There is a thread about posting at the top of the forum. Not sure about LR but bumping up the contrast means the lights a little lighter and the darks a little darker. I usually do it in curves. Opening up the midtones usually involves curves too. Pick a point in the middle of the chart and drag it up a bit.