Puffin portrait #2 head angle

[Jory Griesman]

Same puffin as yesterday, but a different head angle (and different, looser crop). Beak shadow may not be optimal, but not a lot of angles to image this solitary puffin on a ledge, with sun not moving either. Would you clone ouot this shadow, or leave it in as natural. Technicals almost the same as yesterday:

Nikon D300, with 600 mm f/4 lens and 1.7 TC; 1/400 sec, f/16, ISO 200, aperture priority.

If the Chief of Police (for head angles) is out there (Mr. M.), please comment. I'm still not sure if bad/poor head angle means primarily looking away, or if there are other angles with the bird facing us that are still not optimal. Trying to learn.

Thanks.

[Fabs Forns]

Much better crop and fine head angle. Good to get the eye light and I may lighten the whole thing a couple notches while burning the light foreground. TFS.

[Randy Stout]

Jory:

Good advice from Fabs. I would def. darken the foreground a bit, but like the grasses against the breast. On my monitor, the overall brightness is pretty good, but I might very carefully lighten the eye and the darker face whites. Very subtle change however.

Cheers

Randy

[Arthur Morris]

Good advice by Fabs. I used a 30% Clone Stamp on the bright foreground tones, lightened the iris just a bit, and darkened the pupil. The head angle head is light years better than in your first post. If you follow the advice of those who stated that the head angle in that first image was a good one you will continue to create inferior images. I would leave the shadow.

If you would like to learn more about proper head angles there are several threads in the ER that you need to study including one brand new one that is mentioned in a Sticky at the top of this page.

[Kaustubh Deshpande]

Jory, loved this one a lot. The shooting angle is very nice and I loved the FG blur a lot. Comp and HA work for me.

[Jory Griesman]

Artie, I take slight offence ;) to the line "you will continue to create inferior images". However, I like your improvements with your repost. You've gone one step beyond what I had done with the eye. Although I think it does look better in your repost, as I noted earlier, it doesn't look like the eye of most puffins that I've seen, which tend to be dark and muddy. I wonder if this has something to do with their overall shape as flat, rather than convex.

At some point, when the head angle thread in ER winds up, I wonder if you could also talk about eyes/Photoshop along these lines. Is this something you see as a must (ie, lightening iris, darkening pupil, adjusting catchlights, etc) or are some of these adjustments an individual choice, as opposed to head angles, which seem more of an objective point or law, rather than a subjective one or personal choice.

[Arthur Morris]

Jory, Taking offense is your choice. (www.thework.com). I was and am trying to help. If you like, I can go back to your first post and tell you that the head angle was perfect. But the fact remains that the first image featured a vastly inferior head angle and there was at least one person on that thread who was telling you that the head angle is fine. So I wanted to make myself perfectly clear. Please let me know if you would like me to continue to critique your images honestly (as if they were mine). Or not. :)

The eyes of puffins look dark when it is sunny because they are deeply recessed. I tried not to over-do it.

There is tons of stuff in the Eye Doctor section of Digital Basics that details everything that I do to a bird's eye or eyes in Photoshop. I work on the eyes of about 75% of my bird images. It is of course a personal choice.

[Jory Griesman]

Of course I want you to be honest, and greatly value your opinion. I was just kidding (hence the ;)) about taking offence, and am, as a relative beginner, still learning...and hopefully improving! I think HA has been mentioned numerous times, but not elaborated upon, and this forum, as well as ER, have explained what constitutes the preferred HA, but I hope you will post more pairs in ER to help us learn this. I have purchased Digital Basics, but am only about halfway through, and not yet to the Eye Doctor part.

[Arthur Morris]

Super. Lots more for the HA game. And thanks for your purchase.

ps: I do not give breaks to beginners :)

[Arthur Morris]

Of course I want you to be honest, and greatly value your opinion. I was just kidding (hence the ;)) about taking offence, and am, as a relative beginner, still learning...and hopefully improving!

There is always some truth in jest....

[Jory Griesman]

Agree, but I honestly didn't think you meant to imply that my images in particular were inferior (even if they were). I thought it was more of a general statement to us participants about not heeding HA (and other) advice.

[Arthur Morris]

What I said was that if you believed--as at least one person stated--that the head angle in the original post was OK that you would continue to create inferior images (like the one that you originally posted). That advice is for you and for anyone else who visits this thread.

[Axel Hildebrandt]

I like the angle, serene mood and setting. Adding to the other comments, I might lighten the shadow of the bill.

[Art Kornienko]

The angle does it for me, Artie's eye lightening and other pp does improve the shot. Think it needs a bit more lightening. Very nice detail.