Barred Owl

[Peter Farrell]

This was my first opportunity to shoot an Owl in the wild. The sun was almost directly behind the Owl and i did not have any better vantage points. SonyA700, 70-400G @400mm, f5.6, 1/500, iso1600, ev +1.3, HH,
PP in PSE8, large crop, straighten image to stand owl upright, selective levels, curves and sharpening on owl and perch. Darkened Bg and applied Gausian Blur.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Peter - your first OWL in the wild is a exciting find - still remember mine ;)

Not going to give you the answer - only a hint.
What RGB value is white??

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Peter,

Great find! I never get enough images of owls. You did well in getting an unobstructed view of the owl. I like this presentation with the owl looking straight down the barrel of the lens.

If this were mine I would make the following post capture adjustment. I think your image has a lot of potential. To demonstrate, I made the following adjustments in photoshop. I hope you don't mind. Remember you're the artist so it is up to you if these suggestions are worth the effort or have merit (hopefully I am not boring you with the detail below).

1. I see a strong green color cast which I assume is due to the green foliage. I used Robert O'Toole's Average Blur Color Balance at 100% to remove the color cast.
2. Did you use flash? I ask because the eye look a bit strange. Anyway I created a layer if just the eye using quick masks and in selective colors add black and remove blue and cyan to make them appear more like I am used to seeing them.
3. I find the brighter stops in the background to be a little distracting. So I added a blank layer about the background layer, change the mode to color, using the eyedropper I selected a darker green and then painted on the color layer to change the brighter stops to green.
4. The background greens seemed a bit bright for my personal preference so desaturated the greens by adding a Hue/Saturation layer and and subtracted 18% saturation from the green. I did this in an attempt to make the bird standout more.
5. I also selectively sharpen the face.
6. This is more of a question/observation. I see some noise in the feathers; especially in the feathers below the perch. Was the image originally under exposed and lightened a fair amount when you processed it? I would suggest running some noise reduction on the master file to see if you can clean the noise up with out loosing the detail.

Thanks for sharing.

[Lance Peters]

Hi Peter,

Great find! I never get enough images of owls. You did well in getting an unobstructed view of the owl. I like this presentation with the owl looking straight down the barrel of the lens.

If this were mine I would make the following post capture adjustment. I think your image has a lot of potential. To demonstrate, I made the following adjustments in photoshop. I hope you don't mind. Remember you're the artist so it is up to you if these suggestions are worth the effort or have merit (hopefully I am not boring you with the detail below).

1. I see a strong green color cast which I assume is due to the green foliage. I used Robert O'Toole's Average Blur Color Balance at 100% to remove the color cast.
2. Did you use flash? I ask because the eye look a bit strange. Anyway I created a layer if just the eye using quick masks and in selective colors add black and remove blue and cyan to make them appear more like I am used to seeing them.
3. I find the brighter stops in the background to be a little distracting. So I added a blank layer about the background layer, change the mode to color, using the eyedropper I selected a darker green and then painted on the color layer to change the brighter stops to green.
4. The background greens seemed a bit bright for my personal preference so desaturated the greens by adding a Hue/Saturation layer and and subtracted 18% saturation from the green. I did this in an attempt to make the bird standout more.
5. I also selectively sharpen the face.
6. This is more of a question/observation. I see some noise in the feathers; especially in the feathers below the perch. Was the image originally under exposed and lightened a fair amount when you processed it? I would suggest running some noise reduction on the master file to see if you can clean the noise up with out loosing the detail.

Thanks for sharing.

Hi Phil - correct on the cast - Still seeing it in the repost though.

[Phil Ertel]

Hi Lance, you are correct. That is what I get for being in a hurry:o. This is a tuff one. I ran another average blur color correction at 1005 and still thought I could see the color cast. I ran another it again and adjusted the opacity at 35%. This makes two rounds of average blur at 100% with a third at 35%. Better but I not sure it is 100% correct. This is about the best I can do. Hopefully I haven't gone too far.

I did try a couple of other methods of color correction but I got the best results using Robert O'Toole's Average Blur.

[Lance Peters]

Looking better - a little yellow now perhaps - but better :)

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Love these birds too and it amzing when they take off, there is no sound. Curious as to where the green colour cast came from. Angle of capture doesn't look too steep.

[Bob Miller]

Hi Pete...Like the last repost best

[Oscar Zangroniz]

Great capture Pete. I've never been able to capture one yet, so congrats. Some fine ps by Phil. Second one looking much better.

[Peter Farrell]

Thanks evryone for your citiques and coments.
Phil, thanks for the repost and instructions on how you did it. Very helpful.
Peter