white on white

[pat lillich]

no light today, and almost no birds - but at least this snowy flew by. totally overexposed it, ended up dropping it 1/2 stop in LR. used nik detail extractor on the wing, and lightened the head a little. I'm curious - should i have tried to make the background white? or tried to darken it? (this is just the grey day that it was just before I had to leave for work (of course the clouds went away once i left)) also nik sharpening in cs5

wish the head was towards us a smidge more, and that i'd been coordinated enough to up the iso and get more depth of field.

1/800 sec at f/4, iso800, 500mm f/4L, manual, handheld, 1dmk4

appreciate any comments and help

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Pat, I really like this image! For me, it is on the border of being an OOTB image and you know that is a positive thing in my book. What I think takes it out of the box is the almost complete merge of the front wing with the sky. While I like this technique, others here will say that it doesn't allow the egret to stand out from the bg - which is true but also artistic. For a "faithful" rendition of the scene you would probably be set more like f/5.6@1/3200 or so... The crop feels tight to me everywhere but on the right. Nice detail, wing position, and color rendition. Excellent work with the big glass! I am a sucker for snowies...

I would not try to alter the background at all. I think the image as presented is the best use of the original capture. This is an example of why I actually like to shoot on overcast days. You can get something different and interesting like this. I can see that you removed all color from the background and white parts of the bird. This contributes to the unique and artistic look of the image.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Pat,

Cool. Like this one a lot, particularly the feather detail in the shadows. Might shift the light blue front edge of the wing toward warm, if it were mine.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[pat lillich]

thank you Kerry and Michael, I really appreciate your opinions - sometimes i know i like an image, but i don't know why and i'm very uncertain as to whether or not the image will be interesting to others. urm - I did not intentionally remove all the color - I did play with removing the yellow cast in the egret, but thought that I had cancelled that!

As always, i struggle with the crop - here is the first one, would this have been better? Michael, I'll play with the color and see what happens.

thank you again!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Pat,

I like the second crop but this is a subject thing.

This is a well framed high key look and the total image is unique. The combination of diffused light and post processing produced a nice picture. Let's talk about what makes a picture work. Simple elements telling a story, balance, controlling the frame well and something different. The high key is done in such a way that demonstrates nice detail in the head-area but the fade to white technique as the subject almost disappears into the frame is really strong and very unique. Overcast days can produce sweet pictures like this, almost a combination of photographing a subject with an abstract feel and look.

Regarding exposure, remember when the sky is this bright you need to make adjustment to keep the image in balance. Metering off the sky would probably suggest adding possibly two stops of light which would end up close to Kerry's suggestion of a shutter around 1/3200. Nice work, keep em coming.

[Ravi Hirekatur]

Pat,
I like the second cropt better than the first. What I like the most is the shades of white that almost merges into the BG and the perfect texture in the shadows and the gradual increase in tone from right to left on the back wing and the darker colors of the beak and the legs make it stand out against the white background. It seems to me like the bird is emerging out of the white background.

[Kerry Perkins]

Hi Pat. The reason I mentioned the lack of color on most of the bird and all of the background because of this - the values for red-green-blue are the same, which is the definition of the lack of color. I have info in my sticky at the top of the forum page (Are the whites hot?) about a color meter on the mac and a free one for pc. You can also see these values in PS in the "info" panel. You can use any tool, but I prefer the crop tool that has a single pixel in the middle. Move the cursor over the image and note the values shown for RGB - if they are all the same then there is no color. It would seem unlikely for this to happen in nature so it seems to me that something created these color values during your post work. Regardless, the image is super!

[Cathy McEntee]

Striking image Pat. Very nicely done.