First-time post to the wildlife forum and a long, long time since I posted to BPN.
I captured the attached image of this male jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal last October. Would love image critiques.
Still very much a novice on PS (CS4) so would also appreciate all post-processing advice (re-posts also welcome!).
Post-processing included a curves layer applied to the jaguar to brighten him a bit, a hue/saturation layer to bring out some more of his color as well and some sharpening with Nik Sharpener Pro. A branch was also cloned out in the background.
I am struggling in working with selections and layers to get a more natural feel and not a "pasted-in" look.
Nice looking cat. Doesn't have a pasted in appearance to me. Since you already removed one branch from the BG, I'd personally tone down or remove the bright one coming off the back. Also, as a personal preference on a very minor point, I'd darken the pupil and the corner/eyelids of the eye just a touch to give it a bit more contrast. It appears to be a bit lighter in that area than I'd expect although it could actually be lit up by the sunbeam on the face.
The light and the BKGR is far more problematic than the processing. Subject in shade/filtered light with relatively distracting BKGR in the sun is a toughie. You did pretty darned well. Agree on the bright branch and the need for some eye doctor work.
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Hi Ted,
A rare one you got. I guess a sighting itself is a privilege. Were you on a boat?
Difficult lighting conditions. However, the bright out of focus branch behind its back - as already pointed out - is a bit of distraction. Is it a full frame or cropped image? The image would have been strengthened further with some more space at the bottom, preferably till the foreleg joint. Do you have a vertical? Look forward to more.
nobody has pointed it out so I will - there are some artifacts spilling over from your curve/levels masking of the cat, specifically on the chin, front leg, ears and basically all around the edges of the cat to a lesser degree. it's always tricky to make sure the editing blends in smoothly - I suggest you rework it and feather your selection better after selecting the jaguar.
you did handle the conditions very well, and the sighting itself is one on my photo-bucket-list.
Thanks to all for the suggestions. The dappled sunlight conditions were less than ideal. Morkel, I did pick up on the aberrations with the curves/levels masks after I posted and have reworked these. Thanks, for pointing these out. I was on indeed on a boat.