Double Vision

There were two deer in this shot. I just darkened the background

somewhat. Now that I can work with layers and understand them

better, I went back to some of last year's images and played around

with them.

This is really nice, Kim! I like the dark background. Heck, I like all of it. Keep going! James

Wonderful image. I like the dark background. Thae darkness makes this stand out, a very different wildlife shot. Great work! Beautiful animals.

Hi Kim, You can do everything if you ask me, even creating a double vision.

 

 

Love the detail in the foreground deer and the symmetry the background one provides. Great choice of a black bg and placement of the subjects in the frame. I, too, have been working more in layers and find that it provides a tremendous improvement in creative control. Well done, Kim.

Thanks, guys. Ken, the only problem when you learn something different (and better) is you want to go back and re-work all the old shots. I'm sure I have literally thousands of images! Too little time... :)

At first glance it looks like the same deer superimposed. Composition is excellent and the depth achieved works great. The white pinstripe is slightly too strong IMO but apart from that...Great as always Kim.

Kind Regards, Brendan

Brendan, I may have boosted the contrast a little too much. I generally have to up the contrast & saturation for uploading to PN. It's always interesting to see the original shot, so here it is.

Kim, the contrast is just fine....i think you did precisely the right thing with the image after viewing the original..a work of art. in saying that, i would have personally have tried to create a more painterly effect, because that is what i am attempting with a lot of my work at the mo. I still think the white pinstripe is too heavy....but thats personal preferance. Great image!!!

What a transformation! I just keep staring and staring and ... ... It's been at least 10 minutes now!

Thanks for the re-visit, Brendan. I'll tone down the white a bit tomorrow and repost. Bryan, I'm flattered! The black background does seem to work well on animal shots.

Great portrait -- very well done.

Beautiful shot Kim.I am a great fan of the black backgrounds for animal shot, and it works superbly here.

This is an outstanding image and technically very well done. Looking at the original, I can say you have done a very good work. Congrats.

Thanks for the positive comments on this one. I reposted and didn't bump up the contrast before doing so.

Wonderful photo and post-processing!

Thanks, David. I originally took this image because of the placement of the deer, with one right behind the other one. I stood at an angle to get this shot and was quite pleased with the original. But I really like what the black background does - enhances the faces and make them look like deer in light, at night.

Very easthetic picture with good presence. Looks very 3 dimensional too.

Nice job on the background, Kim! The deer are good too but I was just admiring the darkeneing of a background with such similar colour and tone. Aside from PS work the original shot is beautifully composed and the f2.8 aperture has done its stuff nicely. (Do you ever use that lens on any other aperture? :-)) Great image.

Fabulous work, Kim.... My hearty congratulations!

Went back to check settings (I LOVE Nikon Viewer because you can see the lens used - I had selected the WRONG one, btw - and aperature, etc.). This was shot at 1/500, f5.3 and 240mm, using the 80-400mm Nikon VR.

What a great shot. I saw your originial and I really like what you have done with it. I think the contrast is perfect IMHO. Your whole portfolio is amazing. ~Will

Thanks, Will. I've often said I enjoy the PS side of photography almost as much as taking the original shot. But you have to start with something decent and the better the original, the better the PS turns out, imo.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Although I've noticed there are a lot of PS haters on this site. But I love it.

I think people who hate PS are those who haven't used it or can't figure it out. There IS a learning curve, for sure, but the more you see what it's capable of, the more you want to learn. I used to do darkroom developing and you can do the same things with PS, only a whole lot faster!!