Macaque Monkey - Following Jiro's tuts

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi All,

Would love some feedback on this. I first processed in ACR (WB etc), then took it into CS5 and followed Jiro's PP tutorial by placing a B&W Luminosity layer and adjusting the levels to suit. I then followed the more recent 'dodge and burn layer' technique that Jiro has just posted.

I may have overdone it a bit, but I think that's only to be expected when you try something new. But overall I am really happy and grateful to Jiro for showing me these new techniques.

Please let me know what you think.

UNPROCESSED:



PROCESSED:



Thanks for viewwing

[jiro]

Very interesting result, Tommy. You certainly brought out a lot of detail on the image. The change in color of the scene made my impression of the monkey to change from passive to somewhat being cautious of the viewer. By brightening up the eyes you really did made the shot more interesting! Nice work, man.

[Rasbury]

Very good job on the PP Tommy.The monkey is well framed in the photo also...Ron

[CBImages]

Hi Tommy - yes you have certainly brought out the colours much more, it even looks slightly HDR'd as there is now so much detail.
For my tastes and I am sure everyone will see it differently, I would tone down the fur and face slightly but leave the background and foreground which now frames the monkey wonderfully well without being too distracting.

I found it easy to overdo the 'Jiro Effect', when its done right it is a stunning method to enhance colours and contrast. I must buy Willie a beer sometime!

Chris

[FrankMi]

Hi Tommy, what a dramatic improvement. It reinforces my feeling that without PP, all you have in a lot of cases is a snapshot. Well done! More competition in the Mini's I see!

Just curious, was the monkey mostly grey or brown when you took the shot?

[jiro]

Hi Tommy - yes you have certainly brought out the colours much more, it even looks slightly HDR'd as there is now so much detail.
For my tastes and I am sure everyone will see it differently, I would tone down the fur and face slightly but leave the background and foreground which now frames the monkey wonderfully well without being too distracting.

I found it easy to overdo the 'Jiro Effect', when its done right it is a stunning method to enhance colours and contrast. I must buy Willie a beer sometime!

Chris

Any English Golden Ales would do Chris.

[RockNGoalStar]

@Jiro, thanks man, I see what you mean about the change in the viewers' impression of the monkey. And thanks again for the tutorials - they've really changed the way I am looking at somew of my photos. I'm not sure the technique is appropriate in all cases, but it certainly adds a lot to wildlife pics like this one, IMO. I'll get you a pint too someday

@Ron, thanks for your comment also

@Chris, I agree with you. I have tried the 'Jiro effect' on a number of other images as well and yes it is easy to overdo it. What I have found is that you can lower the opacity of the final 'Overlay' layer and it will tone down its effect somewhat. Other than that I guess it's about getting the right settings in the surface blur step.

@Frank - thanks! Yes it is a dramatic improvement in the shot and I like how Jiro's workflow has changed it. I think the camera did a pretty good job of picking up the true colours of the monkey on quite a dull day in the first instance. So it is not too dissimilar to the colour of that from what I remember.

I am going to go and post this over on Nikonians and see what they say. I'll feedback to you later Jiro

[jiro]

Guys, lest we forget, we should thank Mr. Calvin Hollywood for sharing this technique to us. You can send him a thank you note at http://www.calvinhollywood-blog.com/. What is so good about this guy is that he's never afraid to share his photoshop "secrets" to help other photographers up their standards in post-processing techniques. Kudos to you Mr. Calvin!

[RockNGoalStar]

Ooooooh, he's doing a 2-day workshop in Wokingham in August... ...That's just down the road from me!! I might have to attend this...

[jiro]

Ooooooh, he's doing a 2-day workshop in Wokingham in August... ...That's just down the road from me!! I might have to attend this...

Awesome! Hope you can attend and share to us the bounty!