Another Snowy Owl from Amherst

[Melissa Groo]

Canon 1D Mark IV
500mm +1.4 TC
Gitzo/Wimberley

ISO 800
1/640
f/5.6

Another snowy owl from my couple days on Amherst Island in Ontario 2 weeks ago. I really liked the color of the lichen. Struggled a bit with the crop, which is about 50%. If I included sky, BG looked too busy, and foreground not the best either. Wondered if it it would be worth trying to clone out the fencepost, though that might be a bit tough because of the intervening plants.
Some recovery on whites, sharpening.
Critiques and comments very much appreciated. Thanks for looking!

[Doug Brown]

Great habitat shot. Better eye contact would have been nice. I'd definitely get rid of the fencepost.

[Richard Unsworth]

Love this super habitat , good luck with removing the fence post - how?
bg a little noisy in places

these snowy pics are annoying lol

[laurie golden]

I like the lichen too. The fence post does not bother me but might if I could see the top - as it is, it looks like a tree. Do you have any more space at the top before the start of the sky? I would prefer more space on top and more off of the bottom.

[arash_hazeghi]

very nice environmental shot Melissa, like the look. I think something wrong with processing though as the image shows heavy compression and loss detail on the snowy. Check it again if you get a chance...it happens when you use save as opposed to "save for web" in PS

[gail bisson]

Hi Melissa,
I think something wonky has happened in your processing for web. The image has a ground glass appearance and IQ is not to your usual standard. Can you repost once you figure out the problem, without the post in the BG too! Aren't I sounding bossy?
Gail

[Melissa Groo]

Thanks to all for the feedback. I agree something looks wonky, thanks for calling my attention to it, Richard, Gail, and Arash. How's the repost, better I hope? I also took Laurie's advice and recomposed a bit. And took out the fencepost, no mean feat. Since this was a pretty large crop, I borrowed some BG from another part of the picture that didn't make the cut. HAd to do some cloning, lightening of parts, painting, etc. Don't look too closely, I'm sure it's not the best job.
I also ran NR on the BG a couple times. The noise plus the largish crop I fear has made the IQ not the best.

[arash_hazeghi]

Melissa, I don't think the lack of IQ is from crop, a 50% crop is nothing for the 1D4 as it still contains 8 mega pixels and the ISO was low... I think it is coming from compression or some other step in the process.

Love the snowys. looking forward to more.

[Melissa Groo]

Arash, do you think this is any better? I changed mode to 8-bit, saved for web, embedded color profile, saved at quality 56 (the highest I could do to get it under 250kb), sRGB, etc. Hope you see a difference, if not, I'm stumped...thanks a lot for your discerning eye and expertise.

[laurie golden]

Melissa, I like the repost much better.

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Melissa,
the repost is still not great. My suspession is confirmed, quality of 56 means way too much compression... I think you have done some cloning in the branch areas so the clone artifacts plus the noise in the BG increase the file size. Try running NR on the BG and see if you can save it at a quality of 80 or more.

Hope this helps

[arash_hazeghi]

here is my repost



because of the busy elemts of BG are in sharp focus the image is very difficult to compress, I applied NR to the BG to smoothen the clutter a bit and then compressed. Also recoevered the blown hihglights in the face. hope you like it

[Melissa Groo]

Terrific job, Arash, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I think IQ looks much better, and detail on the owl.

[Dan Behm]

Melissa,
I like your composition here, Arash and you are working out the issues with processing nicely. I really like the setting you captured here!