Hi Joel, The reds here are over-saturated; as a result, the breast and face are completely without feather detail. They look as if they were painted with enamel. Proper technique with cardinals is to desaturate the red channel only about 8-16 points. Love the pose, the toes on the stalk, and the COMP. The stalk/leaf in front of the bird is distracting as is the diagonal stalk. later and love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
The amount of saturation is minimal. The enamel-like surface is result of noise reduction, also as minimal as I could make it. Will repost without either saturation or NR.
As above, you need to be de-Saturating the reds on cardinals, not saturating them minimally.
later and love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
I de-saturated 20 points, skipped NR altogether and removed some grass stems and leaves. Thanks to Maxis and you for gratis instruction. Much appreciated. Never occurred to me to DE-saturate. But that NR sometimes seems to give everything a coat of paint.
Hey Joel, The cardinal looks 1000 times better. You need to learn Quick Masking as your cloning efforts leave a lot to be desired... You must learn to avoid the repeating patterns as they are a dead give-away to sloppy technique. Lots to learn I know.. Been there, done that.
later and love, artie
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
In a hurry to post, I may work at lower quality than if the photo were to be printed, or, heaven help us, sold.
I brought home 160 frames last night and, already behind, have been laboring over them since early morning. What with other duties piling up, I will not have time to spit in my hand until the middle of next week, assuming everything goes smoothly.
Thanks, Artie, for continuing advise and encouragement.