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Weekly Processing Challenge - Feb. 14, 2015


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<p>Hello All,<br>

I'm one of probably many folks who look at this weekly thread and try to learn from it. I generally prefer to get the image I want in the camera. Over time I've learned that there is a place for post processing in my photography tool box. I'm learning as I go, as I'm sure many do. I posted my best effort with this image last week in the Nature forum. When I worked on it I felt the limitations of my skill set. I could see in my head where I wanted it to go, but didn't know how to get there. I thought it would be beneficial to see what folks here would do. (please, no superimposed hunters, I deal with enough real ones when photographing these birds)</p>

<p>I had been photographing these geese on a snow covered field. I thought they might take off, so I was somewhat ready, but I was also trying some "shoot to the right" while they were on the snow. I did want to photograph them in flight against the distant trees, as I thought it would look cool. I got my wish, but the take-off was sudden and I got 2 shots off that overexposed the birds. What will you do a lot of black and blown white?</p>

<p>I always enjoy this weekly thread and have been appreciative of the effort that goes into it. Thank you to all who offer tips, techniques, and the occasional bit of comic relief. I encourage other "lurkey-lews" to join in if and when you feel so moved. I decided to get things going a bit early as we're due for some rough weather overnight with a pretty good chance of power outages.</p><div>00d80L-554940784.JPG.0e09daaa8d0f605a6c11994257b2662a.JPG</div>

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<p>Hi Laura,<br>

In the attached image I tried to focus on your geese. Firstly, at least the whites weren't completely blown so there is something there to work with. First suggestion for future is stop using ETTR - its an obsolete technique these days. Take the effort to protect your highlights and get the detail then pull your shadows up in post.<br>

As for this image - there's always a number of paths to the same destination - here I've used Photoshop. I first made a copy layer and changed the blend mode to multiply, which put some density back into your geese then flattened this image. I then reopened your original and placed as a layer on top of this one. Then by changing the highlight blend options options of the lower layer to show through allowing the increased density of the geese in the lower layer to become visible in the original. Then selecting between layers I made some minor adjustments for black and white points and removed a little of the blue cast from the birds. More time and effort could do better but the image is potentially recoverable. As a suggestion, if you shot this in RAW, rather than go through the duplicate layer and multiply step, try and create another copy with a mix of lower exposure and pulled back highlights to become the lower layer.</p><div>00d80g-554941984.thumb.jpg.8fdf724b82ba5b9bb43ed77aac9d1814.jpg</div>

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<p>Hi Laura,<br /> here is my attempt. All adjustments have been done in Lightroom 5.7 and resizing done with Elements 10. Now follows a list of things done, adjustments to. WB, Clarity, Vibrance, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks, Noise reduction, Sharpening, Curves and a slight Post crop vignette.<br /> Oh and also the far right bird was removed.</p><div>00d82B-554947684.jpg.8c8cb57d8c8fc7856e5a047a2a4c47a7.jpg</div>
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<p>Cropping and establishing contrast was of primary importance. There is dissonance between the dynamic whites of the birds and the static highlights of the trees that I tried to play up. The result is cacophony and confusion. It is something you might experience in a dark forest when there is a sudden flight of birds.</p><div>00d82D-554947784.jpg.8fd86936f289e2bb38dc6d513e1ab130.jpg</div>
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<p>I opted against posting a 700 pixel wide version for in line viewing as I don't think it is particularly instructive with this image to view it so small. The biggest problem with this image cannot be fixed in post. The busy vertical forest and the busy horizontal flock of geese simply do not make for a successful combination. There is too much going on and the result is cluttered. All of the heavy lifting was done in LR with some noise reduction, sharpening, minor colour and tone adjustments in PS. Rather than type out all of the setting i will attach a screen shot from LR. I will have to attach the screen shot to another post. </p><div>00d82U-554949684.thumb.jpg.878a08fb7994c024a9ef56671d8ddb27.jpg</div>
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<p>I wanted to see the geese in more detail so I cropped it then sharpened. I used the adjustment brush to paint the background in Lightroom and reduced saturation and clarity and cooled it with the white balance adjustment which seems to have helped separate the geese from the background.</p><div>00d838-554951684.jpg.4e8cfea343daa00fc524b41d2cb0e3dc.jpg</div>
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<p>Here are the steps.<br>

(1) Resized, cropped, and applied spot healing tool in PSE11.<br>

(2) Adjusted white balance and basic contrast in Color Efex Pro 4, pro contrast filter. Then used tonal contrast filter to make finer adjustments.<br>

(3) Applied dark contrast filter in Color Efex to bring out more detail, then centered luminosity on birds while darkening borders.<br>

(4) Returned to PSE11 for sharpening.</p>

<div>00d83P-554952284.jpg.19aa645a4ff4c5e5bec16c2d109bbdde.jpg</div>

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<p>I tried several approaches in CS5, but finally settled on using tonal contrast in NIK Color Efex 4, with standard highlight contrast boosted 85%, and midtone and shadow contrast unchanged. Back in CS5, I used hue/saturation to darken and desaturate the blue background and to boost the red/orange saturation of the bird's beaks. Finally, I cropped the image a bit, reduced the image size, and applied output sharpening. This is a great image to learn on, since there are a wide variety of effective editing approaches, as others have demonstrated.</p><div>00d83X-554952584.jpg.fd3bbe130ce2b6b8a56153376469cf5a.jpg</div>
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<p>All in PSE 13 - made a layer for shadow/highlight adjustment, made a layer for color curves and applied a midtone curve adjustment, made a levels adjustment layer and blended as multiply, applied a photo filter adjustment layer with a sepia filter to give the shot a little more warmth. Did some brightening. Object was to attempt to separate the geese from the background as well as I was able. Also cropped the shot.</p><div>00d85K-554957784.jpg.293768a79b730ae2c2779d53fb01b9dd.jpg</div>
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<p>If it wasn't for Rick Bortnick's tips using Auto Tone and Shadows & Highlights in Photoshop I would've never gotten out of CS5 ACR. Some things ARE better and easier done in Photoshop.</p>

<p>Skipped ACR and applied Auto Tone, Shadows/Highlights: Shadows/Amount & Radius=0, Highlights/Amount & Radius=100, Fade S/H to 85% set to Luminance Blend. Applied USM: Amount & Radius 20/20. Increased saturation in Yellows in Hue/Sat. Applied another USM: A&R 50/2.</p>

<p>Applied in ACR 6.7 -35 Contrast & +30 Clarity.</p>

<p>Click on image to see larger 1200px wide version.</p>

<p><a href="/photo/17968095&size=md"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17968095-lg.jpg" alt="PNWC-Feb14-Geese" width="1200" height="675" border="0" /></a></p>

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<p>It's instructive to see the different approaches and results here. The challenges for me were separation of birds from background, bringing back shadow detail on birds, and keeping the color good on beaks and feet.There are many versions here that I really like and are much what I had in mind. Thanks you all for taking the time and providing details. I can go back to the drawing board and apply the lessons offered. I hope some others come in over the week.</p>

<p>I hadn't thought of the vignette, but I admit, I like it. When I worked on the image, I looked at different crops, but only with regard to the birds. Looking at the crops here, I'm seeing more clearly what effect it has on the background. I don't know why I didn't "see" that before, but I've got it now.<br>

Gordon, I like what you did very much and appreciate that you took the time. I understand about the cluttered quality.<br>

I'm drawn in by the results from Tim, Glenn, Michael, Rick, and Gerald. The bluer tones in other versions grab the cold of the day, and Alex's take is akin to what I feel in the snowy woods amid the din of crows.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Not to go off topic but how far away were you from the geese when you took the shot, Laura?</p>

<p>The reason I ask is I've been with one 6MP DSLR camera since 2006 using a variety of cheap lenses from kit to 300mm and was surprised to find the lack of detail in the feathers (more dithered noise) of the geese captured by your 16MP Canon 7D DSLR at ISO 400 with a 400mm lens. </p>

<p>I was thinking of upgrading to a higher rez DSLR thinking I'ld get far more refined detail using my 300mm lens. Now I'm not so sure. Hope you don't take this the wrong way as me disparaging your camera but I think I'm seeing the limits of APS-C sensor resolve or maybe you were just way too far away to capture that much detail.</p>

<p>Thanks for posting this challenge and your feedback.</p>

 

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<p>Tim,<br>

I think I was about 200 yards. I could pace it off, but there's a lot of snow and ice out there right now. I'm eyeballin' it from the house here. I usually get pretty good detail with that camera/lens combination. The light was really flat and honestly, they don't have a lot of detail other than the grays in the black feathers and some lovely texture in the neck. I get better detail on them when I don't blow the exposure. I've got a folder of these birds in my portfolio and I think they're all taken with this combo. Your comment is a testament as to how good your 6mp is. Not taken wrong at all. There are times when I think my XSi does a better job, but it would be unfair to make any kind of judgement about the 7D based on this image. I'm probably the weak link in the combination.</p>

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<p>200 yards is two football field lengths so that explains it. Any fine detail on an object the size of a goose at that distance isn't going to be resolved that well with a 400mm lens. I'm guessing the flock in flight in the your jpeg spanned the width of your hand maybe a little more viewing at arms length with the naked eye.</p>

<p>Thanks for clearing that up.</p>

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<p>Tim,<br>

Since you asked about the distance I keep wondering. Every time I look out there I ask myself, so this evening, I pulled up the location on Google Earth. Ah, push pins and rulers. I photographed the flock at rest in the corn field, so based on features in that photo and recollection, I was able to figure out their location, or pretty darn close. Using the measuring tool, they were 165 yds from me. I drew a line for their trajectory as they flew out, and measured from my location to where I think they were when I took the photo. That came to 185 yds. My estimate wasn't too far off. Not much detail to be expected there either. ;-)<br>

I'll have to try the hand measurement next time.</p>

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