Three Moose

[Teton Chuck]

I was trying to photograph the mountains and these three moose walked into the pond.Gotta admit it made me smile. Click to enlarge. chuck

[ScoutR]

I'd be smiling too. The photo Gods were with you. Beautiful!!

Wendy

[jeeperman]

I miss seeing these guys outside my bedroom window every morning. Nice image, Chuck.

[Mike Buckley]

I was trying to photograph the mountains and these three moose walked into the pond.

Didn't your mother teach you that it's not nice to brag?

Seriously, this is a wonderful scene and you took full advantage of knowing how to capture it. I wonder if you have tried post-processing it with less contrast and more balance between the upper and lower half. I think you can bring out more detail in the animals and the distant mountains and clouds to make this an absolutely spectacular image instead of just a really nice image.

[dje]

Chuck even without the moose it's a very nice shot but the moose just add that extra touch. Well done.

Dave

[jeeperman]

Chuck, I got to thinking about these moose and see that Mike posted pretty much what I was thinking. While all that smoke was coming from my ears I had a play to see if I could bring some of the detail of the moose out. If you care to see what I came up with I will post it.

[Teton Chuck]

Thanks to all of you. I do all my post processing with Lightroom. This is just another reason for me to spend the time getting to know my Elements program. Paul, please do post what you have done. It will help me and I hope others will benefit as well.

[jeeperman]

Here you go Chuck, I used a slight bit af shadow recovery over the full image, very slight and then focussed on the animals with the adjustment brush. With this brush I added a touch of clearity, ruduced shadows then added slight exposure and added just a tiny bit of black back in to keep the contrast up that may have been lost due to the exposure bump. I did everything in LR4

[Teton Chuck]

Paul, I already had my LR book out trying to figure out how to use the adjustment brush. I especially like the fact that you could bring our some of the detail in the moose. I can't overstate how much this kind of interaction helps me develop my skills. Thanks a million. chuck PS - You really are a wizard.

[jeeperman]

Thanks Chuck, I am glad I was able to help. Oh by the way....when I did the moose with the adjustment brush, I clicked the auto mask...adjust to a small sizie brush and outline just the edges of the body, I should say inline as you want to be in the animal. Then change to a larger brush to do the fill in.
So that you can see where you are painting also check the box below your image that says show selected mask overlay. You can turn this box off once you are filled in so that you can see the adjustments happen.
To set your brush.....push K on the keyboard, you will notice a new drop down full of sliders. Each slider works in that brush. Once you are painted in you can then return to that drop down that will still be open and use all the sliders and it will effect only what you have painted. Hope that helps.

[Mike Buckley]

Chuck,

I did just a few simple adjustments that produced results that give you an idea of what I was thinking that you might want to consider along with Paul's ideas. I spent less than three minutes making the adjustments, so it's not as if they're refined by any stretch of the imagination. The adjustments:

1) Selected the moose and brightened them using the Curve tool. (I like Paul's treatment of the moose better.)
2) Selected the evergreens and brightened them using the Curve tool.
3) Selected the dark part of the mountains and darkened them using the Curve tool.
4) Selected the clouds and brightened them using the Curve tool. (They would be more interesting if I had selected only parts of the clouds. Doing so would have produced more interest.)
5) Selected the grass on the shoreline and desaturated it just a bit. My thinking is that the grass shouldn't be so glorious that it draws the viewer away from the moose.

[Teton Chuck]

Thank you Mike. The kind of feedback I am getting from you and Paul is extremely helpful. It allows me to work with the PP packages in a way that is much more systematic than I could do without your input. Much appreciated. - Chuck