egret portrait : continuing to struggle with whites and light

[pat lillich]

last February we did a wonderful trip to Florida that included spending 3 days at Gatorland with Scott Bourne. Scott was wonderful, patient and helpful - and really made me understand about the need to watch where the light is coming from, and the quality of the light. I had read Artie's incredible books and information here, but until someone was standing there asking what in the world i was thinking as i set up totally wrong, I just didn't "get" it.

however - unfortunately, i still haven't gotten it completely. I go from either overexposing the whites, to getting flat images like this one. With this image - when i process the white to bring out the detail in the feathers - the image looks flat. If i use curves to increase contrast - i lose the detail in the white.

I understand that I just need to take the picture correctly in the first place - but i still would like to make the pictures i do have look as good as possible.

any suggestions and help really appreciated....

nikon d300 80-400 f/4.5-5.6 at 400 mm, 1/1250 sec at f/5.6, tripod, iso 800

I wish I had increased depth of field - he was standing very still so I could have made do with a slower shutter speed. That would have given me more of the beak in focus....

[Connie Mier]

I think you did a great job with this, the whites look fine to me. The dof doesn't bother me, What I like most about this photo are the crop (although a bit more room on left would be nice), the pose of the bird and good HA, the bg, and that claw takes it over the top for me. Love that!

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

however - unfortunately, i still haven't gotten it completely. I go from either overexposing the whites, to getting flat images like this one. With this image - when i process the white to bring out the detail in the feathers - the image looks flat. If i use curves to increase contrast - i lose the detail in the white.

Pat,

Greetings. I think, perhaps, the curve adjustment you are applying is adding contrast between the background and the whites (where it is not needed) at the expense of contrast in the whites. The steeper part of the curve will add contrast to that tonal range, but the flatter part of the curve will decrease contrast in its respective tonal range.

An example of just a curves adjustment to the OP (not intended as a final version, just one step):



As you can see in the top curve, in this image the background and the whites are separated into two peaks. The curve adds contrast to the whites peak, while taking the decreased contrast in the few midtones leaving the darks mostly alone.

The bottom histogram shows the results... the whites spread among a larger tonal range (increased contrast = greater tonal range and vice versa).

Add color work (the curves boosted the blues a bit too much) & sharpening... and I think you're there (at least to my eye).

Cheers,

-Michael-

[pat lillich]

Michael - thank you!!! that looks much better - and I had been doing a standard s curve or just pulling down the lefthand dark 1/3rd of the curve - thank you so much, I will try this on the original photo and see how it goes... I really appreciate the illustration of the curve - that was incredibly helpful!

hey Connie, thank you so much - I love this photo - :) especially his rather devious expression combined with that claw.... it is one of my favorites from the whole trip. It is actually almost full frame, cropped on the right side, I'll go back to LR and see if I have anything more on the left, but unfortunately I don't think i do.... i can experiment a bit with adding a little canvas though.

[Kerry Perkins]

I like this one a lot and would agree with the thought to have a bit more room on the left. I love the raised foot! Good explanation and demonstration my Michael. I would add that there seems to be a bit of a blue cast in the mid tones. Lovely background.

[Arthur Morris]

Yes, this image is pretty good as presented. Would not go for any more d-o-f; that might bring up unwanted BKGR detail... In the JPEG there are some hot whites along the upper back. Are you making sure to recover the highlights during conversion???

For the repost I ran 15% Linear Burn on the whites and reduced the BLUE SAT 50 points. I should have taken BLUE out of the WHITES in Selective Color....

[Arthur Morris]

PS: there is tons of great stuff on saving and working with whites in the ER, BPN's most under-utilized resource.

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi Pat,

I know this guy, really. We had one Great Egret that loved to rest in this position.

First on the DOF. I am guessing perhaps 10 to 15 feet from the bird. At ten feet you had 0.45" of DOF and at 15 feet 1.06". Going from f/5.6 to f/11 (two stops) would double your depth of field. So yes that could have helped. With a longer lens, the issue of DOF becomes ever more critical. ADDED FOR CLARIFICATION: Artie's point is well taken, more DOF = more background detail. As it is now the BKG is pleasing

Frontal lighting will flatten details in a white bird, especially on the top of the head and shoulders as the sun gets higher but on overcast days this can happen. I looked at your profile and the images there. The one of the Reddish Egret - white morph had strong side lighting. Note how the birds feather detail is accentuated. Michael did a good job of bringing out the details with the curves correction. With a RAW file a better job could be done as he is already hindered using the JPG posted. I downloaded the image and worked on it but did not do much better with it then Michael.

As I live only 30 minutes from Gatorland and had 10 workshops there this year and created images at Gatorland on 28 different occasions there, I am very familiar with the problems people had with images created during the workshops so understand your dilemma. I will be putting in upcoming issues of my newsletter discussions on some of the problems my participants had and how we solved them during the workshops. I think that might interest you. PM or email me your email and I will get you signed up.

If you have a way to post the RAW file on your personal web space so I can download it, I would not mind taking a crack at it. Thanks for posting.

ADDED:
I see Artie beat me too it, but the Tutorials and Educational Resources forum is also a great place. Two notable links below on whites.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ing-the-Whites

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...s-When-and-How!

[Lance Peters]

Hi Pat - all great advice above - love the raised foot - IMHO for my tastes just a tad tight on the LHS - Feels cramped.
Getting great whites is a real ART in itself - gOt the best person advising ARTie :)

[pat lillich]

thank you all. this is such a great opportunity for someone who is just learning, to have masters willing to jump in and offer advice and help. wow!

Artie - yes I did run recovery - but in trying to get contrast with curves, I bet i pushed the whites too high. And I was just reading a section in the ER (have actually been working my way thru there! you are right, wonderful help there) about whites and I hadn't done it like that at all. so will start over from scratch and follow yours and Michaels suggestions. Thank you so much for your help - I'm working my way thru Digital Basics again. This time I will have more reference to follow your points, having taken a few more pictures.

hey Robert, :) am glad to hear the egret is still hanging out at Gatorland - he has so much personality.... I would truly love to read your information about how you handle the issues of photographing at Gatorland, that would be an incredible resource. I hope that Alan and I might make it back there again next spring, especially because now that i know a bit more, there is such an opportunity to improve the photos i get. I'm going to check your website, and would love to sign up for your newsletter - will send you a pm with the location of the .nef - i'm not quite sure i ftp'd it properly. Thank you so much for your offer!! awesome.

Thanks Kerry - I will definitely look at the blue cast too. I didn't even think to check for that. I looked thru other photos, and have two with a little more room on the left. will look more closely at them. I find it very hard to tell if the photos are in focus and tend to overlook some that may be find. will blow them up in LR and take a closer look.

hey Lance - I'm on a few forums for sculpting and such - this place is the most willing to jump in and offer suggestions and help. You guys are incredible!

[Arthur Morris]

YAW and :) The more you study and practice the better you will become.

[pat lillich]

:) I'm going to get lots of practice - i really need it.

here is another capture taken at the same time - I think it is a little softer unfortunately, but it is full frame with extra space on the left. I ran recovery in LR to deal with the overexposed top of head and back, and applied Michael's curve adjustment there - already a big difference in the look of the whites. Moved it to PS, ran highlights/shadows a little, and made a layer from the whites and applied Artie's linear burn and removed blue. not there yet, but getting better. thanks so much - now comes the practice, practice, practice...

[Arthur Morris]

You might try the Linear Curves pre-set on the image above. Sometimes we--me included--get so concerned with the whites that we gray them out....

[Robert Amoruso]

Pat,

Thanks for sending the RAW file. It was a busy week but I was able to work on your image this morning.

Here is what I did:

Conversion in ACR
1) Highlight recover for minor clipping on head and back.
2) Adjusted Blacks slider holding down ALT key until I had some pixels showing.
3) Now here is the biggy, I cranked up the clarity slider. Clarity is Micro-Contrast which increased contrast in the mid-ranges but here helped to make the detail in the feathers more visible.
4) Lens correction to remove fringing.

In PSCS4:
1) Using a Saturation Adjustment, I masked out everything except the beaks and lores. I increased saturation enough to pop colors w/o it looking artificial.
2) Downsized to JPG, sharpened.

I hope you like.

[pat lillich]

Robert,

thank you so much. that is both beautifully clearer and also much more natural looking - definitely what I really want to do but am failing at. At first reading I see a major thing I'm doing wrong (my husband just 2 nights ago was telling me very intensely that you sharpen as absolutely the last thing before printing - but apparently I am not bright enough to extrapolate and realize that I should be downsizing to jpg THEN sharpening just before saving even when posting. I know I've read that too - just something that wasn't clicking for me)

Your detailed explanation of the steps you took give me several things to experiment with and learn. One quick question, is it the same to do the adjustments you mention in ACR, to do them in LR?

thank you again, this is a wonderful help.