Snail Kite No 1

[Jay Gould]

The is the very first image on the very first day of my HH workshop with Jim. I would have preferred a nicer perch; however beggars cannot be choosy. This bird has been tagged and banded; hmmmmmmmm - how would we feel under similar circumstances?

Camera: 50D
Capture date/time: 28 Sep 09; 7am
Light condition: clear
Lens: 300 f/2.8
Focal length: 420mm
Extender: 1.4X
Tube: none
Flash/Comp: no;
ISO: 800
Exp Prog: Manual
Speed: 1/2500 sec
Aperture: f/5.6
Exp Comp: 0
Metering: Evaluative
WB: Auto
AF Drive: AI Servo
Tripod: no
Filter: None
Crop: 50%
All C&Cs gratefully appreciated!

[Gail Spitler]

Hi Jay
Elegant pose on a striking bird. Took me a while to figure out that was an antenna off the back. Good detail (just hidden a bit), sharp, well exposed (see below)
I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of slightly editing the image to bring out a bit more of the details. In Curves I lightened the darks, and darkened the lights just a bit, increased the vibrance to bring out the blue in the sky a bit, and USM about 50%.

Cheers
Gail

[Jay Gould]

Hi Gail, first I invite everyone to edit my images - that is how we learn!

Second, maybe it is the monitor I am using; neither I nor my wife see any real difference in your image and the OP.

I had increased vibrance initially beyond my OP and it resulted in a bit of blue cast being thrown on the brown feathers. Regarding USM, I assume you are referring to sharpening!? The image was sharpened twiceÑ once when first opened after NR with Pixel Genius Capture Sharpener and after resizing with PG Output Sharpener.

Thanks for your comments.

[Gail Spitler]

hi Jay
Great help, eh - a re-post that shows nothing!!! Oh dear, there you go. I thought about monitor effects right after I posted the re-post. Everything I tried to do was relatively slight, so I can certainly see that it may not be visible on different monitors. Obviously you had touched all the bases
Cheers
Gail

[Harold Davis]

jay, gail's post is dramatically lighter. big time!! she opened up the shadows and tried to bring out more detail. i really like the eye in hers.

you got a beautiful little girl there. big congrats! i think they are beautiful. dont mind the post at all.

[Katie Rupp]

Hi Jay, I'm not seeing a big difference between the OP and repost but lately I've been suspecting that I need a better monitor...I do see more noise in the repost which goes along with opening up the darks. Nice looking bird, hope you're enjoying your adventure.

[Alfred Forns]

There is a significant difference in the two, I like the enhancements !!! Can even go in and clone some texture in the blown area by the head !!

Great looking bird Jay and don't mind the bands or antenna !! Sure got some nice images with Jim .. he always gets you good opportunities !!!

[Jay Gould]

Some say they see a difference; I do not on this antiquated Chilean monitor. However in the interest of education I have applied Topaz Denoise and use Nik Viveza to lighten the darks, darken the lights, and slightly increase overall contrast. Do you like this better? I can certainly see a difference in the feathers after the use of Topaz and there doesn't, at least on my monitor, seem to be any appreciable loss of feather detail - what do you think?

Because I ran into a sharpening halo problem when I created the RP with my workflow I am going through it here. If this need to be moved to the workflow forum - do so!

After Lightroom, when I first opened this image in PS I did a Nik Define on the background, then Pixel Genius Capture Sharpening.

Additional processing and saved as a layered psd.

The sized OP was created as follows:

1. Open saved layered PSD
2. Image - duplicate - check the layers box: results in a flattened copy
3. Ctrl-Alt-I: change size so that it is 1024-800 or less, and apply bicubic shaper for reduction - OK
4. Ctrl-Alt-I: uncheck resample and change resolution from 240 to 72, apply bicubic sharper for reduction, - OK
5. File - Automate - Pixel Genius Output Sharpening for Web
6. Flatten image
7. Image - Mode - change to 8 bit
8. Edit - Convert Profile - sRGB
9. Save As a jpeg.

In the RP image I made a flattened duplicate and after applying Topaz Denoise (Al, for the first time! - Seems like a great program which of course has raised some questions about different amounts to the bird and the background) and Nik Vivezia I followed the above sizing; it put a white halo around the bird even when I reduced the opacity.

I did a resizing without Output Sharpening on the RP and there was no halo; questions for the experts!

Perhaps between the Topaz sharpening and the capture sharpening and the bicubic sharpening upon reduction there is too much sharpening?

Perhaps if you upon opening in PS use Topaz which has a built-in sharpener (they call it blurr reduction and it seems to be a great feature) that eliminates the need for capture sharpening?

Perhaps if you are going to do an Output Sharpening you should not also do reduction sharpening?

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Jay

Sharpening wise you have capture sharpening in LR so there is no need to do additional capture sharpening. In LR you have two types of capture sharpening, Landscape and Portrait and they have nothing to do with orientation. Landscape is more aggressive while portrait best for people pictures. Can be use as a preset when you import images.

My best results for sharpening are using PhotoKit and using the sharpening burshes on the full resolution image then I just need a minor output sharpening for finish off !! With this method I have not seen halos due to sharpening.

From the RP I like the one Gail did the best, seems to have a little more contrast vs the last you posted, just looks a little washed out ... btw sharpness after the topaz looks fine, don't see any problems.

[Jay Gould]

Hi Jay

Sharpening wise you have capture sharpening in LR so there is no need to do additional capture sharpening. In LR you have two types of capture sharpening, Landscape and Portrait and they have nothing to do with orientation. Landscape is more aggressive while portrait best for people pictures. Can be use as a preset when you import images.

My best results for sharpening are using PhotoKit and using the sharpening burshes on the full resolution image then I just need a minor output sharpening for finish off !! With this method I have not seen halos due to sharpening.

From the RP I like the one Gail did the best, seems to have a little more contrast vs the last you posted, just looks a little washed out ... btw sharpness after the topaz looks fine, don't see any problems.

Hi Al, I sent your sharpening comments to my brother and he responded:

I haven't noticed a portrait vs. landscape sharpening in LR. There's just a Sharpening section in the Detail sub-panel on the right. You can ask him about it. My gut feeling is that the PixelGenius boys (and girls?) wouldn't create something better for LR than they would for their own software, so I think we're better off not using the sharpening in LR - set amount to zero - and then using the PK capture sharpener, which has more fine controls in it. The only advantage with the LR sharpening is that it apparently is done on the RAW file vs. PKSharpener which is done on the converted file.

My understanding is that the sharpening tools in LR were developed by the PG Geeks. Since you have PG PhotoKit which includes Capture, Creative, and Output shapening options, why do you use LR sharpening?

Thanks,

[Kerry Perkins]

Jay, the landscape and portrait sharpening settings are presets in the LR "develop" mode, in the left panel. These can be applied during import or later during the workflow.

[Jay Gould]

Thanks Kerry and Al, what do you believe the difference is between the LR sharpening presets and the Detail-Sharpening panel on the right side of the Develop module?