Golden Whitetail

[Michael Lloyd]

I could have made the image cooler in post (WB) but I left it as shot because I liked it.

EOS1DsMKIII manual
600 f4L IS

ISO 640
1/320s@ f5.0

[Robert Amoruso]

Michael,

I would tone down the saturation.

[Rachel Hollander]

Sorry Michael but I agree with Robert, would definitely tone down the yellow in particular. This doesn't look natural.


TFS,
Rachel

[Michael Lloyd]

I agree and disagree. This was shot very near sunset and the light had a very golden look to it. I didn't push saturation or resort to any clever (or not so clever) tricks to make it look this way. The image is what it was. The same light on a mountain would have a different feel to it I suppose. So the question I have is that if the deer looks like what I saw when I shot it, why is that not natural? I spend a lot of times out doors and can assure you that at specific times of the day this is a "natural" look. I'm not trying to be argumentative. I don't have any particular attachment to the shot so either way it's not something I am going to dwell on for long. But I have to wonder at what point does the photographer decide to make an image unnatural for the sake of the audience? Hoping for some discussion...

[Michael Lloyd]

Well... I had to come back and post a semi-retraction. I took another look at the image in ACR and the saturation was pushed up to around 15. I do not know how it got there. Maybe I nipped something with the pen (I use a tablet)? My default for saturation is 0 n ACR. So the following image is the "real" golden whitetail deer. Better?

PS - I re-looked at the image because I was going to post the settings and show you guys saturation wasn't pushed oops

[Rachel Hollander]

Color looks much better now.

[Michael Lloyd]

Color looks much better now.

Agreed... however I wish I would have leveled the horizon before saving as a jpg

[Tom Graham]

" The image is what it was."
"But I have to wonder at what point does the photographer decide to make an image unnatural for the sake of the audience? Hoping for some discussion... "

I ask myself this with every image that I process.
Our eye-brain system makes the real scene into something it expects to see. Real life, our eye is "flying" all over the scene taking snaps and our brain is putting it together and making reality out of it all. The only way you/we would know the true color of the scene is if it had a color reference in it. A gray card for starters. Without a scientific approach to recording color we can only make the final image to our or to our audience liking. Which is probably best for "entertainment" purposes .

Tom
ps - say what - "makes it into something like we expect to see" - huh, no way man!!! Oh yeah?? Then why don't we "see" everything upside down??? That is the way the eye lens projects it on the retina. The brain flips it over.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi Michael

I think the colour is better in the repost. It's not about "keeping it natural" per se, as I know how intense the light of "golden hour" can get (especially here in Africa ), but for me the biggest issue with the OP was that the yellow channel was oversaturated/clipped and resulted in a loss of fine fur detail.

When I opened your image in PS it also showed that the embedded colour space is Adobe RGB. It's better to convert to sRGB for web viewing purposes.

My biggest issue with the image is composition. The low angle is nice, so is the light, but the composition doesn't work for me. I tried a closer crop losing the hind quarters but that also didn't seem to work well for me. Given the space you left upfront I am wondering why you didn't pan a bit to the left and up and fit the entire antelope in?