This shot was taken by a late snowy afternoon... Light was getting low, so I used the flash at +1 exp and shot in manual, trying to get a good exposure. I decided to give up on depth of field and shot wide open to ensure high enough SS while not having to crank up the ISO too much. I am fairly new to using flash.
Gear: Pentax K-7 with Sigma 500/4.5
Settings are: 500mm in Manual exposure at 1/250sec, f4.5 and ISO 800, with flash + better beamer at +1.0 exp Comp. WB is set to Cloudy.
Post processing in LR includes:
- Cropping/framing
- Capture Sharpening in LR of 45/1.0/45
- Extend dynamic range a little with Exposure and Black sliders
- Add clarity using the "Punch" preset in LR.
- Export from RAW to 100% JPeg with Standard Screen output sharpening.
I did not do any noise reduction, as I found that LR's NR does not work very well, and I haven't yet mastered using an external NR program. (I have imagenomic, but have only used it a couple times... I would prefer to use a NR tool that can work directly on the RAW from LR...)
Hi Stephane - I also had trouble doing NR in LR2. What I do now is never apply sharpening or clarity boast to any large, smooth area; and apply NR early (not as far down on the workflow as LR2 implies). Clarity acts like a sharpening tool in part. To see if this works on this image, go back to the original RAW in LR 2, apply some NR, then use the adjustment brush on the bird and perch only to increase sharpening and boast clarity. See what you think. I think one of the keys to all this is to never sharpen noise.
I see you did you set the white and black points (exposure and black) but overall it still looks a bit dull? Maybe increase the exposure a little more?
BTW like the composition and posture of the bird. Perch may be a bit too hefty for this little critter.
Cheers
Gail
Last edited by Gail Spitler; 01-03-2010 at 02:56 PM.
Hi Stephane, this is a cute little guy and I like the snow/rain streaks in the bg. Your self-critique identified the noise and Gail's process sounds like it might be good to try.
Regards,
Katie
Hi - Gail is on the right track - you only ever want to selectively sharpen - so sharpen the bird only and not the BG.
You have a good HA and eye contact - like the rain/snow streaks in the background and the overall good feel to this one.
Bird looks a little soft still and some Noise reduction on the BG would be the way to go.
I sharpened the bird selectively (OVERSHARPENED IT - so you could clearly see the difference - so you wouldnt quite do it as much as I have here) applied some Noise reduction to the background only and set a black and white point in P.S. whilst holding down the ALT key so that I could see were the blacks/whites kicked in.
Hi Stephane,
This is a sweet image. I like the composition, your little guy is placed just right in frame. You have a good head angle and good eye contact. I like the diffused background with the snow. The image does look a little flat. perhaps a saturation and contrast boost would do...Mr. Peters' repost puts it over the top...:cool:
Thank you so much! Every time I learn something new... Your feedback is greatly appreciated....
So just to confirm, ideally I would selectively apply NR to the BG only, and selectively sharpen the Bird/Perch only ?
If so, I might use PS instead, because I find that the selection tool (brush) in LR2 is pretty slow, compared to the magic wand or other selection tools in PS... But that forces the creation of a Tiff... Any suggestions ?
One last question: The sharpening function in the adjustment brush in LR2 does not provide control for Detail and radius. Does it use the current settings ?
Last edited by Stephane Neron; 01-03-2010 at 06:51 PM.
Hi Stephane - you can export the file from LR2 to CS4 or whatever in almost any file format, RAW, PSD, JPEG.... And you have got what I meant to say. Don't sharpen big smooth areas like bg, do sharpen the bird and perch for this image. The same thing is true about increasing the Clarity. increasing the clarity in the bg with have the same effect as sharpening the bg, thus increasing the noise.
Gail
ps - I agree about the selection tool.
Last edited by Gail Spitler; 01-03-2010 at 06:59 PM.
American Tree Sparrow (Bruant Hudsonnien)
