Deep in Thought - Rework

Beautiful work Ashely, Wonderful BG ,the softness really makes the subject pop. Great shot and detail. Nicely done !

Nice fur detail and contemplative pose!
The brightest whites on the hand and back are a little hot, but easy work to bring them down a bit.

Sandy

Just a wonderful image all around and how fortunate you and we are that you made all the right judgements to bring this here. We know enough to know this animal is peacefully enjoying the day.

Very fine portrait- Nice pose, detail and excellent composition- Well done, Fabio

Hi Ashley, an interesting portrait of a fine looking Gibbon. I like the side profile, but would like to see a fraction more space at the foot of the image, it's just too tight for me as presented. Good detail and pleased to see the highlights on the back were nicely retained. I do feel that you could back off a little on the sharpening and perhaps run some more NR on the BG perhaps. Last thought, if the focus point was on the face and with such a shallow DOF the arm looks sharper than the face IMHO, is the camera front focusing, just a though?

TFS
Steve

It was probably thinking, "I've heard it all before, will this guy ever get some new material?"
Ashley, this is wonderful. Love the pose the face detail and perch, overall a great image. One thing though, it seems to border on over exposure on the highlit areas.

Love the comp, detail and pose on this one Ashley. Nice placement in the frame!

Great image. The comp, color, background, dof and detail are very good.

Very nice shot Ashley. The pose is relaxed and the dark BG adds to the reflective mood you mention. Detail is very nice as well.

Many thanks for taking the time to view and leave kind words, comments and suggestions Lorna, Sandy, Charlie, Fabio, Stephen, Wayne, Kurt, Richard, and Steve :^)

In line with some of your observations I'm posting a reworked version.

Sandy & Wayne: Used the recovery slider in LR3 to bring down the highlights in the back and bring up a bit more detail, hope you can see the difference :^)

Stephen: I reintroduced "a fraction more space at the foot of the image", I also cut back on the sharpening on this one a bit and added a double helping of Surface Blur to the background, hope this all works better for you :^)

Not quiet sure what you meant by, " ... is the camera front focusing ...?" I'm pretty much always using single centre point focus aiming always for the eye; if I have time then I go to Single Shot, half depress the shutter release once I've acquired focus on the eye, then move the camera to gain a more favourable composition. For this shot however, I was still on AI Focus (having been messing about with the Pileated Gibbons in motion just moments before!), so I simply put the single point focus dead on the eye.

Wayne: Yep, not the first time I've "communicated" with this one, hence the reason she/he was showing me a total lack of interest; couldn't even manage to elicit a yawn ... one of the best ways I can measure a high level of intelligence in all creatures, be they birds, mammals or even my own species, is how quickly they learn to ignore me ...... Wayne? ... Wayne, you still there? ...... LOL ;^p

Hi Ashley, personally I think I prefer the OP, but just moving the whole crop down about a third, kind of then falls into the 'Rule of Thirds' which can be useful, but would never use it as a constant, as it can then become a straight jacket. The repost for me now has too much space around the subject and I get the impression that he/she is just floating within it. Re the sharpening once again I feel it is between the two, but at 720px you can only get a flavour compared to the larger format size. Finally, you say you applied 'surface blur', not quite sure what that is, but guess it is gaussian blur. Again, applying artificial means rather than leaving it to 'within camera' for me looses the feel and I think a small amount of Noise Reduction would give a better overall appearance to the BG.

Ashley these are just my initial thoughts and it's all subjective.

Steve

dI think the second image is far better with the recovered highlights and it being not so tight on the bottom. Wonderful capture and it must be something to live in such a wild place.

Thanks for returning to look at and comment on the reworked version Stephen :^)

As you suggest, many opinions offered are indeed subjective. I see a great benefit though in reading alternative points of view, some of which I agree while others, after consideration, I may end up settling back on my own opinion as to what appears more pleasing in an image. I think this is really the only way to learn from critique offered; to use the opportunity to see what you've seen through a new set of eyes and make up your own mind in the end whether an image can be improved with a little fine-tuning or not.

As it happens, having reworked this particular image, the only thing I would change from the original version as and when I print it up again would be to bring back a little more detail in the hairs of the back, as I've done in the reworked version.

Unfortunately I don't have specialised software for NR, so I work with the best tool I've come across in PS for smoothing out the grain. I learned about this by way of a CD Tutorial I have for PS CS5, in which the teacher seems to only recommend Surface Blur (Filter > Blur > Surface Blur) for targeted areas of the background, and having experimented with the NR tools in CS5 seeing only negligible results, I can understand why.

Although I have heard of and seen Gaussian Blur as one of the choices on the drop-down menu, I've only just taken a look at the effects that it creates having read what you wrote here. It also appears to be a powerful way to remove grain from the BG, although I think Surface Blur is probably recommended more for subtle adjustments (though I could be wrong!).

As I've said before to others, I'm sure the further I progress with my photography skills in the field, the less I'll be looking to adjust or correct in PP, as I also believe the benefits are far greater getting as much right as possible through the camera is the best way to go. All the same, if it weren't for the tools I've learned to use in PP I doubt I would have had the confidence to post up as many images as I have thus far, which no doubt would have had me learning at a much slower pace, as I wouldn't have had nearly as much feedback as I've had to date.

While not wanting to be argumentative, one thing I would like to add is that I don't see a whole lot of difference between using "a small amount of Noise Reduction" or achieving pretty much the same end by way of Surface Blur, as unless I'm missing something completely (certainly wouldn't be the first time!) in both cases this could be considered "applying artificial means" as opposed to "leaving it to 'within camera'".

Anyhow, the central message I believe you're aiming to convey - investing more time in learning how to get things right through the camera in the field rather than in PP sitting in front of one's monitor - is well noted and, as suggested above, something I'm constantly striving toward.

Many thanks again Stephen for your valued feedback :^)

We must have posted at the same time Luke ;^)

Thanks for taking the time to view and leave a comment my friend :^)

BTW, just to make it clear, this is one a series of images I'm posting up of Gibbons taken at my local open zoo. Although this is something I went into in more in detail on the first posted image of this series (The Makings of a Yawn), not wanting to be overly repetitive with each new image of this series, I may only make it clear again in the shooting data I post at the top of each thread, that this is a "Captive Subject", as I've done here with this one, in case you missed it ;^)

If you did miss it though, and your impression was that this was shot in the wild, then thank you for the additional complement, as one of my chief aims when photographing captive subjects is to have the viewer's imagination running away with the subject in the wild :^)

Very interesting. Great details and well framed, I prefer the repost for the framing, while my preference goes to the original BG.

Hope this have sense.
Cheers Luca

Thanks for posting a response Luca and yes, what you say does make sense, at least it does to me ;^)