Texas Barn Spider

[xpatUSA]

The sun spoiled these shots to an extent, blowing out the yellow markings on it's back and shading the foreparts. Unfortunately, fill flash makes this animal shake itself violently back and forth, thereby making for a long wait between shots - so it was not used; too, the spider's body is very prone to specular reflection, QED.

Two shots to look at:





Shot I with Sigma SD1 Merrill and Sigma Contemporary 17-70mm at approx 50mm f/13. Not quite enough DOF for my taste but commendably sharp for a zoom here and there. Poor choice of background, legs almost invisible.

Shot II with Sigma SD1 Merrill and Sigma 50mm Macro @ f/16 for more DOF. Much better focus and DOF, IMHO. Interestingly, what looks like pixelation on the web strands is actually blobs of sticky stuff.

Both processed in Sigma Photo Pro 5.5.3 then exported 16bit TIFF to RawTherapee and given a serious working over on the acutance front, cropped, re-sampled 50% and saved as sRGB, JPEG Y'CbCr 4:4:4, 90% quality.

Comments welcome.

[Shadowman]

Been having my own issues with reds and yellows, have you tried underexposing a bit? Sunlight and flash does havoc on prime colors.

[Geoff F]

The over exposure isn't too bad so you could probably recover most of it with a little bit of selective adjustment.

I would use Curves on an Adjustment Layer and edit the mask but as an alternative, an Adjustment Brush would probably help; if you have that option with your software.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks Gents,

John, I had some less exposed but, basically, the scene DR was too much for the Sigma and trying to adjust those lesser-exposed shots brought out the good ole' Sigma blotching that we foveonistas are challenged by on a regular basis. I don't like it and trash any capture that has it. That blotching is the bane of our lives and often the real DR of Sigma cameras is more like 3 to 4EV. D700s they are not . . .

Geoff, what you saw had already gotten some curve-type adjustments, firstly the Phamous Phil Light in SPP and then some tone curve shenanigans in RawTherapee. If your adjustment suggestions are for PS or LR, I have neither, sorry. Fair comment though

On a more general note, I am not usually one to struggle with poorly captured images such as the above and often I'll just trash them. So, to the spider: "I'll be baaaak . . " or, for much, much older folks "I shall return"

[deetheturk]

Nice capture Ted, looking forward to your next images of this lovely spider!

[Geoff F]

Does Raw Therapee have anything in the way of 'adjustment brushes' for doing localised changes, Ted?

It is a couple of years since I last used that software and they have introduced quite a lot of extras in that time.

[IzzieK]

Does Raw Therapee have anything in the way of 'adjustment brushes' for doing localised changes, Ted?

It is a couple of years since I last used that software and they have introduced quite a lot of extras in that time.

Maybe the dodge tool or equivalent might be a better alternative...just thinking out loud...

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by Geoff F Does Raw Therapee have anything in the way of 'adjustment brushes' for doing localised changes, Ted?

It is a couple of years since I last used that software and they have introduced quite a lot of extras in that time.

Maybe the dodge tool or equivalent might be a better alternative...just thinking out loud...

About the only thing I've got in the way of brushes is FastStone Viewer's clone and heal tools. Could have cloned the yellow areas of those back markings, for instance. Still intending to reshoot, though.

RawTherapee has awesome tools for detail enhancement or tone/color correction curves based on luminosity but haven't found any brush-type tools at all. Sun's out today, so I'll let the spider grow some more . . .