I have been fortunate to get a ton of images of these guys over the last three years.
This image has not been cropped, giving a different perspective of what I tried to achieve compared with a central composition.
Cooled the WB.
I have been fortunate to get a ton of images of these guys over the last three years.
This image has not been cropped, giving a different perspective of what I tried to achieve compared with a central composition.
Cooled the WB.
Crop is right, happy for the Cheetah to look away, no problem, POV good. Colour, guess this is getting personal now. :D
If anything Russell it is the sharpness of the animal. Crop, tick, Colour tweak?, sharpness lacking. Is this FF or cropped as this has an impact and there is not EXIF data. Not being hard, just think there is so much potential in these images, how can WE get the best out of them for all to share.
TFS
Steve ;)
Post Production: It’s ALL about what you do with the tools and not, which brand of tool you use.

Weeell, this sharpness stuff is more "learning opportunity" for me. Looking at cheetahs jaw, original post, I see individual whiskers. Got to be sharp to see that, I'd think. Yet next to those whiskers, around nose, you can not see sharp fur/hair. Is that because whiskers are maybe 50 times larger in diameter than fur hair? Thus, hair are not being resolved by the camera? Is it because the white whiskers have a strong luminance/contrast edge being against dark mouth? Because the individual fur hairs is against its own color hair and thus no luminance/contrast edge difference?
For kicks I took image into PS and magnified it to 400%, cropped onto head, Below -
.
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I conclude a couple of things from above. Each little square is an individual jpg pixel, right? First, the whiskers are just large enough (in diameter) to be resolved by the jpg pixels and thus we can see them. Also, the whiskers are "white" and thus have a luminance/contrast edge against the mouth. If the whiskers were black/brown, we could not see them against the black/brown mouth. Second, the fur hair is too small (in diameter) to be resolved by this jpg image - even if the fur can be seen on the original large camera image file. But even then I doubt if the camera can resolve fur hair at that distance to subject. Also it would appear that each fur hair's neighbor is so similar in color and luminance that there is no edge for resolution (sharpness).
And anyone else says???
Tom
Last edited by Tom Graham; 05-02-2010 at 05:09 PM. Reason: changed word
Hi Russell Great points by Steve and fully agree !! You got one strong image and its all in the processing tweaks !! Might lighten areas of the face some, select the eyes to make them stronger and general contrast increase for the animal .. just slight. Can also use a soft bursh and smooth out the bg !! One excellent image and do like a lot as presented !!!
Lovely golden lighting, cheetah walking into the frame, composition just right, great head turn - all the ingredients to make this image likable! Tom Graham's analysis is mind-boggling!
impressive image and I liked it lot as posted ,
TFS
wonderful light and the comp is good, although I am wondering about a crop from the top to lose the blue sky and make it panorama?
I like it as posted. There is so much right with this image!
Angle and pose work for me Russel. Some of the PP'ing tweaks mentioned will only strengthen this even more! Very nicely done!