Hi Andy,
The colours in the water are a bit special here and they go particularly well with the grebes brown neck feathers. On my monitor it looks like the head could benefit from a little more sharpening, assuming of course, the original is sharp.
Regarding the yellow base of the bill. I'd convert one Raw file normally for everything but the yellow area. Convert another one for just the yellow area, reducing the exposure and or brightness untill that area's perfect. Open both images in Photoshop. Select, copy and paste the first Raw conversion (for the bird) onto the second one(for the yellow area). Add a layer mask, use a soft edged brush with the foreground colour set to black, to brush over just the yellow area, thus revealing the detail from the correctly exposed layer below. Finally flatten the layers and continue processing as normal.
To add to my previous post about the sharpening. I think that sometimes if you have a fine and highly detailed area in an image, such as the grass in your Snow Bunting image, applying the same amount of sharpening globally can often give the impression that certain less important areas of the image are sharper and more in focus than the slightly less detailed main subject, which of course they're not, they can just appear that way.
I quite often duplicate the background layer, apply sharpening to that, add a layer mask, then it's just a few seconds work to add a few strokes with a soft edged brush to either decrease the sharpening in some areas or to eliminate it completely, if desired.
I don't generally bother for a small 720 pixel jpeg, but find it's often worth the minimal extra time for a large jpeg or prior to printing.It also has the added bonus of not sharpening any noise, if a high ISO was unavoidable.
You probably know more about it than I do, but just thought I'd expand on it whilst waiting for my pasta to cook
Posted by Andy Shepherd on March 20, 2010 at 3:24 PM
To be honest Justin, the head of the grebe was a little soft to begin with. But because I liked the colours of the water so much I've tried to rescue an image that would have normally ended up in the recycle bin.
Also, thanks for the advice. Now if I only new how to put it into practice I can just about manage to adjust the levels, contrast, sat and sharpening and thats about it
Enjoy the pasta
Andy...
Posted by Karen Summers on March 20, 2010 at 4:08 PM
lovely image maybe just a little more room at the bottom of the reflection
Posted by John Robinson on March 20, 2010 at 4:17 PM
Very nice indeed.Love the water colour. Even dropping the gamma a bit seems to improve the head detail.
Cheers
JohnR
Discussion
20 repliesUnfortunately the very harsh side lighting has blown the little yellow patch at the base of the bill, can anyone suggest a fix for this in CS2.
After Justin's comments on my last post re the sharpening, I've tried a little selective sharpening on the head.
Processed in DPP / CS2
7D, 500F4IS+1.4T/c, Gitzo, Wimberley
All comments welcome and thanks for looking
Andy...
The colours in the water are a bit special here and they go particularly well with the grebes brown neck feathers. On my monitor it looks like the head could benefit from a little more sharpening, assuming of course, the original is sharp.
Regarding the yellow base of the bill. I'd convert one Raw file normally for everything but the yellow area. Convert another one for just the yellow area, reducing the exposure and or brightness untill that area's perfect. Open both images in Photoshop. Select, copy and paste the first Raw conversion (for the bird) onto the second one(for the yellow area). Add a layer mask, use a soft edged brush with the foreground colour set to black, to brush over just the yellow area, thus revealing the detail from the correctly exposed layer below. Finally flatten the layers and continue processing as normal.
To add to my previous post about the sharpening. I think that sometimes if you have a fine and highly detailed area in an image, such as the grass in your Snow Bunting image, applying the same amount of sharpening globally can often give the impression that certain less important areas of the image are sharper and more in focus than the slightly less detailed main subject, which of course they're not, they can just appear that way.
I quite often duplicate the background layer, apply sharpening to that, add a layer mask, then it's just a few seconds work to add a few strokes with a soft edged brush to either decrease the sharpening in some areas or to eliminate it completely, if desired.
I don't generally bother for a small 720 pixel jpeg, but find it's often worth the minimal extra time for a large jpeg or prior to printing.It also has the added bonus of not sharpening any noise, if a high ISO was unavoidable.
You probably know more about it than I do, but just thought I'd expand on it whilst waiting for my pasta to cook
Also, thanks for the advice. Now if I only new how to put it into practice
Enjoy the pasta
Andy...
Cheers
JohnR
Tim
Hi Maggie,
The colours are from the orange pick up truck thats on site most of the time.
Andy...
Bob.
Regards,
Paul.
Matt
nits already covered re sharpning and the water appears to be running up hill.
Cheers guys, thanks for the comments and advice
Andy...
Lee