Pronghorn Eye On the Sunrise

[Teton Chuck]

This morning I found the following doe pronghorn very close to the road just as the sun was rising. She stayed awhile which is quite unusual. It was nice to get the photo in such good light, but it was also special to be able to see the sunrise, which was behind me, in her eye. Comments appreciated. - chuck (click for large image)

[Geoff F]

They all look good to me.

[jamn4ex]

A beautiful creature , well photographed! great job.

[jeeperman]

Nicely done Chuck. I need to get back over that way. Used to fish the Beaverhead or the Madison in Montana just north of Yellowstone every year. There was always a bunch of Pronghorns and deer to view. Maybe next summer.

[Bobobird]

Lovely looking animals.

The images are nice but appear a tad soft to me or could be the effect of brown on brown.

[Mike Buckley]

I really like the middle one because it shows not just the animal but her environment. This is one situation when the noise adds some very pleasing, atmospheric colors to the background.

I agree with Bobo that the close-ups appear a little soft to me. (I immediately came to that conclusion before seeing his comment.) The middle one looks fine.

The light provides better detail of the pronghorn's eye in the last one, but I think you can bring it out even more by adding a bit more contrast and sharpening of the sort used when sharpening a human's eye.

[Teton Chuck]

Bobo and Mike, thank you for the input. I have retouched the first and third image. In the case of the third, I decided to abandon the head shot which was simply a tight crop and show the animal in it's environment. I'm not entirely sure I have addressed your concerns. If not please guide me through. - chuck

[FrankMi]

The poses are quite regal in all three.

I agree with Mike that a bit of retouching of the eye in the closeup might be possible but in this case, not being able to clearly see the pupil might make that dicey. I think I would try to lighten the image for the sole purpose of seeing if you can define the pupil more clearly and if you can, then use the lightened image as a guide for retouching a fresh copy of the original. There are a number of eye retouching videos available to provide by example the processing steps to follow. It might not be possible in this case but the learning experience would be well worth the attempt.

Here is a link to retouching brown eyes which might be more appropriate than retouching lighter color eyes as an example of the typical steps you could experiment with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhX9ng-VFMM

Any time I have images that contain eyes, I check to see if a little subtle eye retouching can make a pleasing difference.

[Teton Chuck]

Thank you Frank. I'll give it a try. - chuck

[Mike Buckley]

Now that I've seen the third image, I have to ask if the first image is also such a serious crop. If it is, that would explain the softness; you might be trying to crop more than the original can handle.