A Wet Frog Glistens!

tsiya

Messed around with PL filter, Paint Shop, Photo Shop, You name it. I can get rid of the sparkle, but it makes My frog look plastic. What do You think? This is how he looks.
For scale on this, his perch is a piece of Cedar I ripped to repair the porch swing, it is exactly 1 1/2 inches wide. Little Oly C2500L got this one.
Should I mess around with this shot? It is not even cropped, just converted from TIFF.

tsiya

Same Frog, High Noon, different light.
Was getting used to a glistening frog, then, this. His skin appears a different hue depending on light angle and intensity, as well as how wet he is. This one from further away, using the OlyC4000, PL filter and a 2X teleconvertor, although the filter shows little if any effect on this.
Seriously, there is only one frog living in this tub, it only holds 20 gallons!

SlimCavi

I think the first one is wonderfully better. The contrast just blows me away. The frog looks more like a dry toad in the second, and I'm also a fan of shots where the focus is only on the subject whereas most everything seems to be in focus in the latter.

SlimCavi

I couldn't edit my post, so I'll just make another to add that the reflection in the frogs eye looks awesome also.

tsiya

I like the first one too.
I had a few shots of this guy that really blew out with reflected light, I guess that triggered some over reactive urge in Me to wipe out all glare. Neither shot is played with, some of the hue difference is in the WB settings on the two cameras, the first is actually a macro, less than a foot away. Personality comes through on the first, everybody ought to meet this frog! He poses cheap, just smack yellow flies for him. I have tried to catch his tongue snagging a fly, it happens so fast it is unbelievable. You just see a flash and a fly vanishes about 3 inches in front of his nose.
See what happens when You live in the woods long enough? I could be on the beach, it's Bikini Time!

tmshots

I like the first one as well. The color is powerful and really makes the pic come to life. This is a great shot.

GREAPER

tsiya wrote:

Messed around with PL filter, Paint Shop, Photo Shop, You name it. I can get rid of the sparkle, but it makes My frog look plastic. What do You think? This is how he looks.
For scale on this, his perch is a piece of Cedar I ripped to repair the porch swing, it is exactly 1 1/2 inches wide. Little Oly C2500L got this one.
Should I mess around with this shot? It is not even cropped, just converted from TIFF.

I think he looks great. He looks wet. I think it's a nice shot.

If I were going to change anything (and I probably wouldn't) it would be very minor. I would clone out or otherwise lose the brighter area in the upper left, and mask the area on the board roight in front of him to reduce the glare there. There are a couple of bright spots here and there I might tone done just because they are brighter than the frog,

I hope you dont mind but as an example I played with it a few minutes to show what I mean.

GREAPER

tsiya wrote:

Was getting used to a glistening frog, then, this. His skin appears a different hue depending on light angle and intensity, as well as how wet he is. This one from further away, using the OlyC4000, PL filter and a 2X teleconvertor, although the filter shows little if any effect on this.
Seriously, there is only one frog living in this tub, it only holds 20 gallons!

This one is great too. He looks like a totally different frog with the different light. The only thing I would do to this one is get rid of the very few distracting hot spots by filling them in with green or cloning them out.

I ussually think it is distracting to have minor objects that are much brighter than the subject. The hot spots draw the eye away from the subject IMHO.

tsiya

Thanks, I see what You mean!
That makes a major improvement. In a few days My Uncle Sam will send Me a check, I'll add the memory I need, and get PS rolling. What I have has never been enough for Paintshop Pro, Not even enough to resize. All I've been able to use are the very basics. Then, of course, I will be confused.
The amount of life in a 20 gallon tub of water is unbelievable, water bugs, tadpoles, algae, and one big Pickerel Weed, the thing is a living unit. A Guy from the County came around and started telling Me about mosquitos breeding in standing water, I just told Him to look closely and see what chance He thought a Skeeter larvae would have. The setup balances, the water is full of stuff, but always smells clean. All I do is trickle in some well water occassionally.

tsiya

Last Shot Before Sundown
Had to go try one more, I'm getting compulsive. The low light helped, this was still stopped down to -1.3 on the C2500L even that late. This is about what I've been trying for. Thanks for all the super advice and kind words. tsiya

GREAPER

perfect

wxwax

tsiya wrote:

Had to go try one more, I'm getting compulsive. The low light helped, this was still stopped down to -1.3 on the C2500L even that late. This is about what I've been trying for. Thanks for all the super advice and kind words. tsiya

Yowza, you got it, mate. That's a really, really nice shot.