Pelicanus Portraiturus....

[Paul Pagano]

I was happy with this portrait from the other day. I did some work on the eyes and that's pretty much it except for the conversion in LR. I chose not to brighten the shadows since the detail was good. I really like this lens. It's new to me this week.

Canon 30D
Canon 400 f/5.6 (hand held)
Av f/6.3 @ 1/6400s
ISO 400
Spot Metered

[Shawn Marques]

I like the point of view of this image the images lighting is too harsh. It also would have been better if you had taken the image with the sun behind you to avoid those dark shadow.

[Alfred Forns]

Shawn got it right on the nose !!! Totally agree !!!!

Paul when going after these guys do check your sun angle It is possible to make dramatic images with side lit birds but would suggest the sun at your back From there things will be al lot easier

I like the low angle and clean bg Also you did mange a sharp image with a pleasing crop Could give it an extra usm pass !!!!!! Find other bird and fire !!!!

[Shawn Marques]

Also, Paul, I see some posterization in the sky. I think that can be avoided by doing your post-processing in 16-bit and not in jpeg. Do you shoot in raw?

[Paul Pagano]

I shoot in raw and use LR to pp. I have noticed that LR does this a lot. I am guessing your speaking of the 'waves' in the blue sky. Not sure why this happens. If you know how to stop this in LR I'd be glad to know. This shot wasn't brightened a whole lot which is where I usually see 'waves' prominently.

Also, Paul, I see some posterization in the sky. I think that can be avoided by doing your post-processing in 16-bit and not in jpeg. Do you shoot in raw?

[Shawn Marques]

Hi Paul. I am rather new to photography, and I am not sure of what to say to help you. I am not familiar with LR- what is it? But I am certain one of the other fine folks in this forum can help you out.

[Jim Poor]

Shawn, LR= Adobe Lightroom.

Paul, Check all your LR settings carefully to see what might be causing the trouble. I only get posterization in previews and occasionally with LR and never once output into CS3. Is LR set to output in TIFF 16Bit for CS3?

[Paul Pagano]

Sorry Shawn. Yes it is light room. pp= post processing.

Jim, I just had it set to jpeg. I set it to 16bit tif and it looks a lot better. (I did sharpen some in LR, noise redux in LR (not in neat image), and kicked up the saturation a bit too) I don't normally finish an image in CS3 because I haven't learned how to use it yet. I normally finish off in MS Digital Image....I need to learn CS3...