Another elephant - C&C please

[davidedric]

Hi folks,

You may know by now that I like elephants! I found this one rather challenging to post process, there are a lot of shades of light and dark to balance. I'd appreciate your ideas of what could be done better. I have included a jpeg conversion of the sooc original.

If you'd like to know what's going on, the tree is a winterthorn, a variety of acacia. Elephants love the seed pods (locally, they call them elephant biscuits), small as they are, and this young male is giving the tree a good shake to get a few more down.

Dave

My attempt:





And the original:

[Dave Humphries]

The processing doesn't look too lacking to me Dave.

If it were mine, I would try (although I might not completely succeed), cloning out one or more of the foreground branches that are peeking in to the bottom of frame, especially those that partly cover the elephant.

HTH, Dave

[Mike Buckley]

All of the really important stuff looks fine to me, Dave. I especially like the gentle folds in the skin that you brought out by increasing the mid-tone contrast. I would probably clone to eliminate the foreground limb on the left and the one on the far right. I wouldn't bother with the twigs of dried vegetation or the limb in front of the front leg because they don't pull my eye away from the subject.

Thanks for the explanation of the elephant's activity. Where is this scene?

[Shadowman]

Nice capture and processing recovery.

[John 2]

Looks spot on to me Dave. The added saturation and micro contrast has brought out the texture in the tree and the elephant beautifully and made all the difference. It's a nice capture as well. The pose the elephant has taken up makes for a good comp.

[Wavelength]

great; very different from Indian ones

[IzzieK]

Looks good to me, Dave...Maybe a little bit more crop to the left side and also remove that branch down the left side too to so that the big tree will anchor the frame and that yonder view will also stand out wanting one to look further. The processing is fine -- it is the little things that one discovers while looking at the image...I wouldn't have cropped the little bit more space on right side of the elephant if this is mine.

[Donald]

I think it's good to sometimes see the 'before and after' versions so that people maybe just starting out on the photographic journey can see what we mean by post-processing when it's properly and well done.

As a picture, it's lovely. As a documentary of elephant behaviour, it's wonderful.

[deetheturk]

Very nice Dave, your P/P looks great to me!

[bnnrcn]

Very nice image and the PP work looks fine too

[TonyW]

I too think this is a lovely picture and the story makes if better than a plain elephant picture.

Just to put a contrary view, I prefer a slightly lighter treatment than this one, although the original can do with some dehazing as you appear to have done. When it is viewed at a larger size, I prefer not so tight a crop, especially at the front. To my eye, the tightness of a crop often depends on the size at which a picture is viewed. In this case, the bulk of the elephant needs to be evident. I should add that my monitor is now calibrated so that I should be seeing the picture as it really is. All this is nitpicking and of course subjective.

[Rebel]

I like the PP Dave, it really brings out the texture of the elephant's skin.

I also don't mind the branches in the foreground, it adds that little bit of depth to the image.

[davidedric]

Thanks for all the feedback, and the kind words. I think I will try out some of the suggestions.

The picture was taken last month in the Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

Glad to see that you and your wife are still going on safaris!