Working on My Birds Shots - Continued

[Brownbear]

Thank you Bob... The first photo is my favourite, too... Likely because Canadian geese are plain janes and thought of as pests. That it is your favourite means a lot to me.

My bird postings are a project for this year for which my goals are to improve my bird photos and my editing skills... Ducks in action and the feather details of the swan are harder to capture... So perhaps I should not have included the goose shot here.

I love the first image because in its simplicity it has somehow nailed the world of the water bird. The set of its head combined with the droplets on its feathers elicit an immediate, albeit subtle, emotional awareness of the lives of such creatures.

What more could you wish to convey in one picture?

[Brownbear]

Hi Christina,
I'm only using PSE9 and basically opened it into 'Camera raw' editor.
I then adjusted the 'Recovery' to 30, added some 'Fill light' and then adjusted ;Clarity' to 75.
Hi John,

Thank you for sharing.. the 130% sharpening takes me by surprise but good to know how far one can push things.

Sorry, about the pink. I fixed that setting in LR and reedited for one last time, before I saw your edit so the edit I'm about to post likely be a little sharper.

Yes, this edit looks better on my screen.


I then opened in PSE9 and sharpened just the swan, @ 130%
I have now selected just the swan and removed the saturation level to zero on the body, and minus 50 on the head.
Does this look any better on your screen?
Kind regards
John

[Mike Buckley]

John,

I think it will help Christina if you explain the tool that you used to select the swan in your most recent version.

[Brownbear]

Final swan edit, because it is all I can handle learning in one day.

I edited in LR again, starting from zero contrast and sharpening. I selectively sharpening the swan to 25% (without the lovely pink colour I had mistakenly turned on in LR on my prior edit)

In LR, I also selected the water, and decreased the contrast to zero because the water seems to contrasty to me.

I downsized and selected the swan and sharpened with an unsharp mask in Elements 9, .3 radius, 85% with a threshold of one.




And for this one I used local contrast enhancement to sharpen... Radius 5, Amount 30%, Threshold 0... I think this edit works better to bring out the details in the feathers.

[JPS]

John,

I think it will help Christina if you explain the tool that you used to select the swan in your most recent version.

Thanks Mike, you are right of course. I used the 'quick selection' tool. As the swan had a very defined outline, this tool easily selected the area without and problems.
Kind regards.
John

[Dave Humphries]

And for this one I used local contrast enhancement to sharpen... Radius 5, Amount 30%, Threshold 0... I think this edit works better to bring out the details in the feathers.

Hi Christina,

When I use USM for LCE (always as an additional step to sharpening), I use a very large radius, typically the maximum of 250px - and an amount that is usually less than 20%.

To my mind, a radius of 5px and amount of 30% is more like wide/weak sharpening and that maybe what's causing the funky swirls on the left background water area.


When sharpening after downsizing; don't be afraid to try threshold of 0 if the image can take it (i.e. not look noisy).
Also; amounts over 100% are OK if the image needs it (e.g. if it doesn't actually have any white spots in it already).

The next few bird shots I publish I'll try to remember to give the USM settings for both LCE and sharpening, so you can see how these vary - and ask questions (in those threads) if you want to know why.

Cheers,