A Little Blue For You

Osprey Whisperer

........Heron that is. No blue skies...No blue waters....No Chicago Blues eiter. Just a little blue heron sitting on the edge of the sea wall out in the backyard. :uhoh Nope...BIF were MIA I'm afraid. Little guy took off and I was asleep at the wheel (camera).:dunno

Cheers

MM

Harryb

ye gads Mike that's the bluest little blue heron I have ever seen. Did you buy a Nikon?

Rohirrim

Mike,

I hate to be the one that tells you this....but....I think you may be losing it. First your seeing Frogs and now your seeing.....

BIRDS, where there are no birds.


rofllol4 :lol4 :lol4 :lol4

P.S. Nice series of shots.

Osprey Whisperer

Thanks guys. I'm not sure what to say. I'm pretty sure there was a bird in the picture. Guess his mother must have called him for dinner?


Harry....are you complaining about too much blue? Don't worry.....I didn't buy a Nikon. Why would I want to spend more than twice as much money to get a camera that doesn't take any better pictures than the one I already have? :uhoh :hide :flash

Seriously....is it too blue? All I did in PP (I was in a hurry...) was "auto -adjust" and boosted saturation a tad...and some sharpening. Didn't mess with any color balance...or boost saturation anymore than usual. (was not trying to make the bird really blue...shot in RAW..cam settings 0). Perhaps this is better? (no "auto adjust") It was an amazing looking little blue.

Harryb

Bird Man Photographer wrote:

Harry....are you complaining about too much blue? Don't worry.....I didn't buy a Nikon. Why would I want to spend more than twice as much money to get a camera that doesn't take any better pictures than the one I already have? :uhoh :hide :flash

Seriously....is it too blue? All I did in PP (I was in a hurry...) was "auto -adjust" and boosted saturation a tad...and some sharpening. Didn't mess with any color balance...or boost saturation anymore than usual. (was not trying to make the bird really blue...shot in RAW..cam settings 0). Perhaps this is better? (no "auto adjust") It was an amazing looking little blue.

I would say it got over saturated a tad. He is way beyond blue.

Osprey Whisperer

When shooting in RAW..with camera settings at 0 (unaltered effects etc)..when you convert and then put in photoshop to adjust various parameters. What do you usually boost saturation to (level #) ?? I'm curious. I'm not debating that he's too blue..as I'm sure your eyes are better than mine (I hope) . I'll have to go back and redue these I guess. PITA . . While I'm getting nozy..what about sharpening and contrast? I am lazy most of the time and just use the "smart sharpen" feature on PSCS2. Usually around 110-125. Guess another question..that might explain somethings... what is you monitor's resolution set at? Mine is at it's lowest setting I often wonder if this is the problem with my "oversharpening" ? I do boost up the res..when I'm doing that final sharpening process, now. Don't know if that helps. I think maybe I'll just shoot in B&W to resolve any color problems from now on. Here I thought you'd love that BLUE.

Cheers

Oversaturated (rained on) BMP

Harryb

Bird Man Photographer wrote:

When shooting in RAW..with camera settings at 0 (unaltered effects etc)..when you convert and then put in photoshop to adjust various parameters. What do you usually boost saturation to (level #) ?? I'm curious. I'm not debating that he's too blue..as I'm sure your eyes are better than mine (I hope) . I'll have to go back and redue these I guess. PITA . . While I'm getting nozy..what about sharpening and contrast? I am lazy most of the time and just use the "smart sharpen" feature on PSCS2. Usually around 110-125. Guess another question..that might explain somethings... what is you monitor's resolution set at? Mine is at it's lowest setting I often wonder if this is the problem with my "oversharpening" ? I do boost up the res..when I'm doing that final sharpening process, now. Don't know if that helps. I think maybe I'll just shoot in B&W to resolve any color problems from now on. Here I thought you'd love that BLUE.

Cheers

Oversaturated (rained on) BMP

Hey Mike,

I do most of my post work in Nikon Capture. NC has a color booster and I usually just apply the auto setting on it (very,very mild boost). If the color looks off to my I will usually try to set a grey point to adjust the WB in a shot. If there's too much bias towards blue or red I will adjust with NC's Color Balance Pallette.

I do my most of my sharpening in NC also. I use presets for each of my cameras that I got from Ron Reznick. I will use PS USM for local contrast enhancement.

My monitor is set to1024x768 at 32 bits.

I love blue but you went beyond blue here. The shots are fine, just need some fine tuning. BTW, I get those nice rich blues usually through my exposure. I'm usually exposing for a bird that's lighter than the water so I use a negative EV adjustment. This exposes the bird OK but underexposes the background (water). The underexposure will usually deepen and enhance the blue in the background.

Osprey Whisperer

Thanks Harry. I'm always shooting -EV for any white birds. When it's a dark background and a white snowy...in bright Florida sun... I usually will drop it to -2EV. Often times the highest of highlights will still be on the edge of being blown. I usually shoot in shutter priority when taking BIF. I think about switching to fully manual to eek even a tad bit more underexposure to keep details in the whites...but figure the auto adjustments of the camera (though a tad off) ..are much faster (and usually more accurate) than I am. So...I leave it at -2EV (or somewhere inbetween that and "o" *home*). I do find this extreme contrast.. high ISOs...changing light conditions (bright sun to dark shadows) and the plain old digital gremlins..make for some interesting colors, effects. Still not fully comfortable with the digit..to know what to expect EVERY time out. If film wasn't so expensive...and slow.. :uhoh

I'll go back and rework those shots. Maybe not even boost saturation (at first anyway) and see what I get. Maybe a red bird?

Cheers
MM

Osprey Whisperer

Reworked those shots....but not sure this method works. Not sure if there is some funky math involved when working backwards with saturation numbers in photoshop CS2. I opened the above images and then reduced saturation by the same number it was increased (originally/previously). In theory...this should have put the saturation factor back to "0" zero? They still look awful blue don't they? I know this bird had strong hints of blue in the bright (yet cloud covered) sky. So....what do you think? Too much blue..still? Maybe I'll have to go back to the original RAW files..and start from scratch?

**sorry for all the posts/images...just would like to get this issue resolved**

Thanks.

MM

Osprey Whisperer

Sooooo


Too blue

or not too blue.......

that is the question???

Do you guys/gals think there is too much blue to the bird in the last pics?

Thanks

MM