I would like some Critique if that would be good. :)
Posted by Philip Schwarz on February 18, 2009 at 11:02 AM
Looks like a great capture to me. I would be very happy if I could get something like this.
Posted by Ken Hupila on February 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM
A nice classic shot. Always difficult to shoot a subject against a bright sky and the underside of the hawk is just a bit underexposed, not bad, just a bit. Don't know what your settings were, but going to assume you didn't use exposure compensation to overexpose. With where this shot is, wouldn't have taken much, maybe a third to 2/3's. Also, depending on how far away your subject is, could use a flash and a Better Beamer to light up the bottom just a bit.
Posted by Paul DeCesare on February 18, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Hmmmm.... the 37th feather in the second row on the right wing is a bit crooked, kinda bugs me...
I agree with Philip, I'd be happy too if I could get a shot like this! Like Ken said, it's a touch underexposed, but you might have blown out the sky or gotten too slow of a shutter speed if you even had the CHANCE to compensate. Maybe touch it up with the Dodge tool (carefully!) or double-process the RAW file to keep that nice rich sky and get a better-exposed bird. Photoshop CS4's new Camera RAW version has an exposure Adjustment Brush now that I use all the time for things like this.
OK, enough techno babble, great capture, it's a keeper! BTW, the backlighted edges look good to my eyes, really like those.
Posted by Toni Lankerd on February 18, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Classic soaring shot, Noah! In Photo Shop, if you select just the sky, then inverse, you can easily brighten the underbody of the bird without losing that beautiful blue in the sky.
It works for me too. The lighting around the edge of the bird is nice. I actually think the exposure looks pretty good, though I'm not a bird photog. expert. Some of the highlights seem a tad hot already, and I don't think more exposure would be a good option. As mentioned, you could selectively brighten the underside of the bird if desired. I could also see a slight saturation boost being beneficial (to emphasize the contrasting coloration of the bird with the sky).
Posted by Mike Klarich on February 20, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Nice image! I wouldn't change too much. It looks probably pretty accurate to the setting you captured it in. Sometimes we might be guilty of tweaking things too much (me included). That however, is an entirely different topic. You could slightly increase the saturation and use a fill light tool to correct the naturally occurring perceived under exposure of the wings. Like I said though, I wouldn’t change too much; it looks pretty good to me!
Thanks everyone! i'll post the second version soon :)
Posted by Steve Foss on February 23, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Sweet pose, Noah. I like this image a lot. The underside does look dark on my monitor. As posted, there remains quite a bit of detail in the shadow areas. I like the sideways head turn, which opens the head/neck up to the nice light, and as already mentioned the top lighting angle nicely emphasizes the silhouette. Anyway, since you asked for a critique, there you go.
If you do want to brighten the shadows, the easiest way I've found to do that in photoshop in a case like your image is to use the magic wand tool (experimenting with the "tolerance" value) and highlighting the darker areas. Then you can apply a judicious amount of brightening using the shadow/highlight feature (easy to overdo if not careful). You can "grow" the selected area after selecting by holding down the shift key and clicking the wand on a new area. If that brings out more noise, I'll run noise ninja on it as long as that doesn't soften feather detail too much. Then for the bright highlights, it's back to the magic wand and then shadow/highlight to add detail through a slight darkening of the very bright whites. Too much of both will make the image look flat, so it's worth pooping around with to get just the effect you want if you go that route. It's a good combination of tools that has value in many PP situations.
Nice stuff, Noah, an image to be proud of for sure.
Discussion
8 repliesI agree with Philip, I'd be happy too if I could get a shot like this! Like Ken said, it's a touch underexposed, but you might have blown out the sky or gotten too slow of a shutter speed if you even had the CHANCE to compensate. Maybe touch it up with the Dodge tool (carefully!) or double-process the RAW file to keep that nice rich sky and get a better-exposed bird. Photoshop CS4's new Camera RAW version has an exposure Adjustment Brush now that I use all the time for things like this.
OK, enough techno babble, great capture, it's a keeper! BTW, the backlighted edges look good to my eyes, really like those.
Welcome to the Midwest forum and NPN!
If you do want to brighten the shadows, the easiest way I've found to do that in photoshop in a case like your image is to use the magic wand tool (experimenting with the "tolerance" value) and highlighting the darker areas. Then you can apply a judicious amount of brightening using the shadow/highlight feature (easy to overdo if not careful). You can "grow" the selected area after selecting by holding down the shift key and clicking the wand on a new area. If that brings out more noise, I'll run noise ninja on it as long as that doesn't soften feather detail too much. Then for the bright highlights, it's back to the magic wand and then shadow/highlight to add detail through a slight darkening of the very bright whites. Too much of both will make the image look flat, so it's worth pooping around with to get just the effect you want if you go that route. It's a good combination of tools that has value in many PP situations.
Nice stuff, Noah, an image to be proud of for sure.