Coal Tit

SKMSKM Registered Users Posts: 149 Major grins
edited March 19, 2008 in Wildlife
Hi

Heres a Coal tit from my session at the local country park this morning.

What do you think

Regards

Stan

IMG_8077800px.jpg

Comments

  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Its an OK capture Stan but it doesn't hold one's attention. I would suggest rotating the canvas so that the subject is looking up and not down. Then I would try to correct the under-exposure in my post work and lighten up the shot.

    I downloaded the sho and played with it and to me eye those adjustments look better than your original shot.
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • SKMSKM Registered Users Posts: 149 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    I downloaded the sho and played with it and to me eye those adjustments look better than your original shot.[/quote]

    Hi Harry

    Could you post your re work so I can have a look

    Thanks

    Stan
  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    SKM wrote:
    I downloaded the sho and played with it and to me eye those adjustments look better than your original shot.

    Hi Harry

    Could you post your re work so I can have a look

    Thanks

    Stan[/quote]

    Sure, this is a fast re-work.
    267742506_pHUbN-L.jpg
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • MaestroMaestro Registered Users Posts: 5,395 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Nice image. I agree that it needs a bit of sharpening and brightening in Photoshop but the orientation of the pic doesn't bother me that much.
  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Maestro wrote:
    Nice image. I agree that it needs a bit of sharpening and brightening in Photoshop but the orientation of the pic doesn't bother me that much.

    I agree its not so much the orientation but the space the subject has to look towards. He has more room when "flipped" than he had looking "downward".
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • pyrypyry Registered Users Posts: 1,733 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Harryb wrote:
    Sure, this is a fast re-work.

    I think you've overdone it. The original looks pretty damn good already, exposure, comp and looks.
    Creativity's hard.

    http://pyryekholm.kuvat.fi/
  • SKMSKM Registered Users Posts: 149 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Hi Harry

    Yes I think that is much better although I think it would look better if the orienation was more horizontal. Love the colours you have brought out - did you do that with hue and sat or other tweaks. I looked at my raw fillel. again and was not able to do much with the exposure without blowing the highlights, particularly the white of his chest. I am still fairly new at this and am still learning photoshop (CS2) so any hints would be helpful

    Regards

    Stan
  • MaestroMaestro Registered Users Posts: 5,395 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Harryb wrote:
    I agree its no much the orientation but the space the subject has to look towards. He has more room when "flipped" than he had looking "downward".

    Agreed. :D
  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    pyry wrote:
    I think you've overdone it. The original looks pretty damn good already, exposure, comp and looks.

    The original shot was underexposed, the background was too dark so that the subject instead of standing out blended in with it.
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • HarrybHarryb Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 22,708 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    SKM wrote:
    Hi Harry

    Yes I think that is much better although I think it would look better if the orienation was more horizontal. Love the colours you have brought out - did you do that with hue and sat or other tweaks. I looked at my raw fillel. again and was not able to do much with the exposure without blowing the highlights, particularly the white of his chest. I am still fairly new at this and am still learning photoshop (CS2) so any hints would be helpful

    Regards

    Stan

    As I said I didn't really do that much to the shot. I rotated the canvas, if I had more time I might have fiddled with it to add some space to the right and cropped some of the space off the top.

    I then used my trial copy of NIK's Vieza plug-in to selectively brighten some of the areas and to get the subject to stand out form the background.

    This of course brought out some noise in the background and I "painted" in NR (NIK's Define plug-in) to the background only.

    Fortunately I had an OK shot to work with, PS can make a good shot better but it can't help with a lousy shot.

    The exif on your shot shows no exposure adjustment. I would have done a positive adjustment of around a third of a stop on the shot. It was an extremely tough exposure and beyond the DR of the camera. You were going to lose the shadows or the highlights no matter which way you went. The only thing that would have helped would have been some fill flash.
    Harry
    http://behret.smugmug.com/ NANPA member
    How many photographers does it take to change a light bulb? 50. One to change the bulb, and forty-nine to say, "I could have done that better!"
  • SKMSKM Registered Users Posts: 149 Major grins
    edited March 19, 2008
    Harryb wrote:
    As I said I didn't really do that much to the shot. I rotated the canvas, if I had more time I might have fiddled with it to add some space to the right and cropped some of the space off the top.

    I then used my trial copy of NIK's Vieza plug-in to selectively brighten some of the areas and to get the subject to stand out form the background.

    This of course brought out some noise in the background and I "painted" in NR (NIK's Define plug-in) to the background only.

    Fortunately I had an OK shot to work with, PS can make a good shot better but it can't help with a lousy shot.

    The exif on your shot shows no exposure adjustment. I would have done a positive adjustment of around a third of a stop on the shot. It was an extremely tough exposure and beyond the DR of the camera. You were going to lose the shadows or the highlights no matter which way you went. The only thing that would have helped would have been some fill flash.

    HI Harry

    Thanks for that info. Re exposure I did adjust the raw file to +.25 and could probably have gone a little further before blowing the highlights.

    Stan
Sign In or Register to comment.