Tufted Duck- Digital improvements

Hi Guys,

Every now and then i see posts on this forum wich are not too bad but could be much better after some digital improvement.
I too shoot images sometimes of wich i think that they are "beyond repair".. ..or wich just need some basic improvements in PS.
I do not see myself as a PhotoShop Guru but do think it is good to discuss this issue.

This Tufted Duck image for instance looks fine now..but when you see the original there is a lot that has been done to "rescue" it.
There was a green cast in the image and the image was underexposed to save the white highlights. Besides that i forgot to clean my sensor and so there are quite a bit of dustspots wich had to be removed.Also lot's of detail had been lost in the dark parts of the image.

What i want to say with this post is that often there i more possible with our images then we think. Especially when shooting in RAW there is a world of information locked within the image waiting to be released and improved.

So keep up the good work and i am looking forward to some of your before and after shots...

Here's my after shot and i will post the before shot in the answer post below.

Greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Canon Eos 1D Mark3
Shutter speed: 1/400 sec
Aperture: F 11
Exposure mode: AV
Exposure compensation: - 1 2/3
Flash:no
Flash exposure compensation: -
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: AI Focus
ISO: 800
Lens: Canon 600mm F4 + 2 x converter
Focal length:1560 mm (incl. crop factor)
AF mode: Auto Focus
On tripod and Wimberley Sidekick from hide
Levels/Curves/USM/Contrast/Saturation/Noise Ninja/Lab-Sharpening

_________________
Good things come to those who wait...
Golden rule in Nature & Wildlife Photography

www.jeroenstel.com
www.wildpixels.nl

Some of the improvements i made are:

-Cropping to chosen size
-Removing dustspots
-Removing Green cast
-Saturation improvement in saturation mask layer
-Improvements in dark and light parts through luminoscity masks
-Curves improvement in curves mask
-Color balancing in color mask
-Contrast and midtone boost 20% transparency
-Removing noise in background through surface mask in LAB mode
-Sharpening through edge mask in LAB layer
-Adding border and signature

And now the original file without the "digital improvements"

Greetings,

Jeroen Stel

Hi Jeroen,

That's a great illustration of how important computer skills are nowadays for a photographer. I feel mine are OK, but it's always hard to know where to draw the line, and end up with "over processed" images that just don't look right. I suppose, as with most things, it's a case of practice makes perfect.

Cheers,

Dan.

Hi Jeroen,

Thanks for the examples and the information.
I'm sure I can try some of the tricks on my own picture to improve them. Some of them I allready do.
By the way, the picture is wonderfull (1st), maybe the waterblue is a little to much, but that is all.

Really like this shot Jeroen, thanks for sharing the information

Jeroen

A very interesting thread often asked the same questions but not too others. How far should you go providing you have the skills? I prefer to see the true environment in the shot rather than digital enhancement but that's just me.

Barry

Kansas / Eastbourne