APTATS in the Head!

[Arthur Morris]

With digital, you think much differently than with film. When I saw this head throw, I just tried to get the bird in the frame and to depress the shutter button when the bird was clear of any merges with the two other birds in the frame. When I saw that I had not clipped the tip of the bill, I knew that I would be able to create a successful image.

Canon 500mm f/4L IS lens with the EOS-1D MIII. 45-point AAFPS. ISO 200. Evaluative metering +1/3 stop: 1/1250 sec. at f/5.6 (exposed all the way to the right with no flashing highligts...) Gitzo 3530 LSV CF tripod and Mongoose M3.5.

I used the techniques described in Robert O'Toole's APTATS PDF to cretae the image in the next box.

later and love, artie

[Arthur Morris]

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[Tony Whitehead]

Great demo Artie - APTATS really helps make difficult tasks easy

[George DeCamp]

I think I will get one of Roberts CD's myself! :)

[Alfred Forns]

Another vote for getting Robert's CD !!!! I like the saturation a lot High impact and beautiful !!!!

[Dean Fleischman]

Dear Artie,

First of all, awesome result from that original shot.

I have to ask, how did you achieve that richness of color? Was it saturation or Curves or both? And, how do you know when too much is, well, too much?

Thank you!

Regards,

Dean

[Arthur Morris]

Dear Artie, First of all, awesome result from that original shot. I have to ask, how did you achieve that richness of color? Was it saturation or Curves or both? And, how do you know when too much is, well, too much? Thank you! Regards, Dean

Hi Dean, Glad that you liked. As described in Digital Basics, I do a Levels Adjustment while holding down the Alt key. I usually adjust the middle tone slider a bit lighter than what I want the image to look like. Then usually increase SAT 6-8 points and then to darken the image to where I want it I move the Lightness slider in Hue/Sat a few points to the left.

With some images, I then use the pre-set linear Curve in CS-3. I create the j-pegs generically with an action (also desribed in DB) and as many images get a bit darked from the compression I have to lighten the j-pegs with the middle-tone slider in Levels.

In general, folks over do everything that they learn in Photoshop for a few months. Man, you should see the colors in some of my earliest images.. Yikes! Fortunately with digital you can go back and re-optimze the images.

Make sure that your monitor is calibrated and soon you will be making your images look good to you. Even after 5 1/2 years of digital I sometimes screw up until someone says "Why so this of that?" and I say, "Hey, you are right."

Check out the posted image and then the re-posted image and see how the group helped Mr. Famous Bird Photographer :) create a better image: http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ead.php?t=3626

later and love, artie