Another rescued owl

[JemC]

The background on this has not been changed, i have however cloned out a bit of the handlers hand,
C+C welcome

[Dizzy]

Hi James,

What a beautiful bird that is, and I do hope it has a chance to be returned to the wilds
after it heals up.

I think your image came out quite well; did you shoot that in Auto-mode, and as a JPEG
or RAW? If so, to really get the benefit of what your D50 is capable of you'll want to shoot
in Manual, Aperture or Shutter priority modes.

I think you captured the owl nicely, but I would have cropped it a bit tighter to remove the
lights in the background, and the open space to the left side as I didn't see them adding any
positive elements to the image. The lights actually drew my focus away from the owl, and
that is not desired. Now, that said, those are simply my thoughts, and others might completely
disagree.

Saved your pic and had a go at it with Lightroom 3. Cropped it to a 10x8 (which is a bit
too tight, but this was just an exercise), removed the excess background area, then cloned
out that small spot on the bottom edge (down by his claws) as well as the bright spot just
to the left of his beak. Added a slight amount of contrast, sharpening and saturation.
Here is what it ended up as:

20pvx2s-2.jpg

Certainly not perfect, but it might give you some ideas on other ways to crop/process the
image. I would love to see how it comes out if you make any changes.


Mike

[JemC]

Hi Mike
Thanks for your comments,
the picture was taken in RAW, i have tried to do some of the things you mentioned and here is the end result..
is lightroom different than cs5 or better??
all this is still relatively new to me so dont think i can get it much better than this with my knowledge however with practice and a lot of time i should improve (hopefully)
Regards
James

[JohnC]

Nice shots James (the other one too I mean). We have an owl rescue centre here too and I have similar shots. I went on a day for photographers (no general public getting in the way) and they were flying in the adjacent fields with the handlers-maybe you have that opportunity at this Centre too.I think this is a Long-Eared owl.The cropping and cloning that Mike's recommended/done (thumbnail) and you've now done has improved the overall image greatly and next time you'll know what to look for.There's lots of cropping /cloning advice on here so just browse and take it all in. There's still a bit of light distraction just above its head but it's too tight to crop so a further clone would remove that in a minute (you probably overlooked it)...always worth the effort. Often with a shot like this portrait mode is better so you can get a decent amount of headroom.You've got everything you need in CS5. Some on here use Lightroom3 (me included). Just go to Photography Tutorials (top of page) on here and see if what you want to know is covered,infact a run through them all will be beneficial anyway.

[JemC]

Hi John
Glad you like them,
would that be the Barn owl centre you refer to?
unlike yours the one near me does not give that opportunity, i will keep practising with the PP however as i still have a lot to learn.
Regards
James

[rpcrowe]

This statement has nothing to do with your owl picture (which I really like BTW) but, has a lot to do with the concept behind cropping the image.

The cropping improves the image greatly. I love the bright eyes and cropped in this fashion, the eyes are a focal point of interest.

IMO, this image illustrates perfectly why I like to shoot with zoom lenses. Using a zoom lens (with sufficient focal length) I would have framed the image this way in the camera and would have had the advantage of all those pixels thrown out by PP cropping. Using a prime lens; unless, luckily, I am standing in the exact spot that gives me the image I want; I need to foot zoom which is not always possible or practical or I would need to crop in post processing. I am not at all saying that there is anything wrong with preferring prime lenses, just that this is why I prefer to shoot with zooms most of the time because they are more versatile for me...

[JohnC]

Yes..That's it James. http://www.barnowl.co.uk/