canon 7d, 300mm f/2.8+ 1.4 tc at 420mm, 1/320 sec at f/9 ISO 400, +1/3 EV, aperture priority
changed camera profile to camera faithful in LR, +clarity, vibrance, increased temperature and added a tiny bit of saturation and black. this is full frame.
blurred background in CS5, used LAB curves to intensify colors and darken it a bit more, USM on bird
still not happy with the colors - seems there should be someway to make them richer, less washed out looking. got a little carried away trying different things in CS5, and am no longer sure exactly what is in this image! But the orange on its neck feels a little strong, while the rest all feels a little blech. Will appreciate any suggestions and advice.
thank you for looking
Last edited by pat lillich; 03-02-2011 at 10:09 AM.
Love the DOF you have here and the bird is sharp with excellent details. I love the pose too. Not sure about the transition in the background intersect the bird though.
As for color, it look alright to me, but I never see this bird in real life. Can we see the original image before post process too, to see what the color looks like originally.
The colours look good to me Pat. This is an outstanding image. Love the sharpness (could it be a bit too sharp?), eye contact, soft light, and great feather detail.
I'm not sure how you adjusted saturation but in RGB colour mode the result is often unnatural. I use LAB colour mode to adjust saturation- just convert to LAB and make the A and B channel curves (straight lines) steeper. Play with the steepness and you don't have to make the same amount of adjustment to both channels.
thank you Thanaboon and John. I'll post the original when i get home from work. I appreciate you looking at it! John - I think I definitely got forgetful and ran USM way too many times on the poor image. I just found out that part of my problems lately is that my eyes have changed radically in the last few months, and i truly can't see the blamed screen at the moment. hopefully a new pair of glasses will help.
Like John I wonder about just a tad too much sharpening and with Thanaboom I agree about the BG; I think it would be better without the green as it draws my attention away from the bird. And oh my, is that bird something! I LOVE it! The colours are lovely, the pose is great. A wonderful image, Pat.
hey John and Bill - both are much better than my first one. boy - i really got carried away, didn't I. I had thought i had internalized that i really preferred not doing too much in post processing - but then we noticed that Alan Murphy's images from the Texas workshop were much richer with deeper colors than the ones I had - and i started playing trying to figure out if it was because of some lack in the way I took the photos, or in the way I processed them.
so i think i'll start from the beginning and try again too. I like the slightly warmer colors from warming the temp in LR, that fits the way i remember the pelicans really looking. and I like the slightly more intense colors from John's LAB process - I think i might have done some S&H in CS5, and that is why the neck on my pelican is lighter in color - maybe i'll see if a lesser intensity of that is reasonable. Bill, I've been meaning to do a side by side comparison of smart sharpening and USM. maybe its time to finally do that. Or look to see if there is something in the tutorial forums about it.
thank you both. i really appreciate your looking and making suggestions!
so tried to incorporate all suggestions - I softened the green to tan border in the bg, tried the smart sharpen, and used lab curves to intensify the colors. I also warmed temperature in LR and did a little s&H to lighten the neck a little.
here is a more natural looking version that I like more than the first - thank you all!
I'm new here, so I hope you won't mind that I had a play with your photo. I applied shadow/highlight at 5 and 5, duped the layer and changed the blending mode to soft light, sharpened with Focus Magic @ 1 px, 75 % and USM at 10%, 40px.
Pat, I think this is a superb image. Pose and composition are great. The sharpness is spot-on and I like the colors (I'm not sure what 'reality' is with this species, but it looks great to me).
San Diego Pelican
