The Lady's a King

On this one, those eyes make it. My eye is immediately drawn to them. You handled the shadow area and the exposure well, but those eyes!!

Very impressive shot of a King Cheetah. I agree, the eyes make this shot special. She is a beautiful cat. Thanks for sharing.

Great capture with look back pose !
I would prefer to reduce the blacks here.
Jagdeep Rajput

Great setting and head turn, love those eyes Ashley.
Excellent details and interesting light, this comps work fine for me..
Well done!

great sharp shot! the feet aren't an issue for me

Beautiful light and color. The eyes really stand out.

Wonderful look this animal has given you. The crop at bottom is no problem in my view. Sharp, well exposed photo.

Compelling eyes and great pose. I'd suggest lightening up the dark areas on the back a bit. the light makes the other areas glow beautifully.
Sandy

I like the head turn with those gorgeous orange eyes lit by the low angled sun Ashley. In a way it is a pity that the special patterning is partly shaded, particularly in this case with her being a King Cheetah. I don't think the virtual feet are a concern here.

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions Ralph, John, Jagdeep, Howard, Doug, Dan, Charlie, Sandy, and Vincent :^)

I do agree that the blacks are a little too black, but I couldn't seem to find a way of lightening them more without losing the richness of colour that the sun was enhancing on the rest of the lady's beautiful coat, which I really didn't want to lose. I could of course make separate selections of each dark patch and work on those, but this just didn't seem like a good thing to play with.

More than happy to receive further ideas or suggestions on this.

I like this one better than the last two Cheetah posts Ashly. Love the eyes and light on the face. The coat of these King Cheetahs are magnificent!

Hi Ashley,

Solid shot and the eyes definitely do add to it. I have no issue all with the feet and the crop...I don't see this as a "lost virtual feet issue" - simply that they're in the grass.

RE: the blacks. I agree that seeing slightly more detail in the back would be nice. There are multiple ways to lighten up the blacks here, but probably the quickest and easiest would be to use a near black luminosity mask to select the darkest regions (only) and work on them selectively. If need be (i.e., other regions of the image are inadvertently lightened) you could quickly manually mask out those regions of the image.

Cheers...

Brad

This is really nice Ashley! Love the look back, and the amount of space you've left on the right gives a feel that the cat is moving off, but had to look back one more time for something, etc. Excellent image.

Nice shot Ashley, unique pattern on this beautiful cat.

Thanks for your thoughts and comments Kurt, Brad, John, and Guy :^)

Brad: Thanks also for the helpful tips, which I've made a note of and will endeavour to put to good use soon as I can find the time to rework this one.

Thanks for posting this Ashley - certainly a magnificent animal, and caught in great light.
I am going against the grain here and saying it does feel a tad tight for me at the bottom...would prefer just a sliver more space. Furthermore, having more on the LHS and less on RHS would have been beneficial as my mind keeps wondering where the cheetah is looking?...

Hey Ashley,
Blacks already mentioned but the pose and eyes are fantastic.

Marvellous! I'm jealous!

Thanks for your candid thoughts and views Morkel, Roman, and Ajit :^)