Leopard in a tree - P&P help needed

[Mike Buckley]

Understated (despite/because of, the work that went in to it), so still looks natural.

Exactly.

Another way to make a vignette look natural is to manually draw it using an irregular shape rather than using the vignette tool.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Dave, great image and I like your re-edit

Hi,

Thanks for the ideas. Here is another attempt from me, using Lightroom, but trying some things out. Basically

Global:

Drawing down the luminance in the leaves using "Targeted Adjustment Tool"
Slight exposure increase
Significant (+48) contrast increase
Default sharpening
Vignette, much heavier than I usually use

Local. Created various Adjustment Brush masks:

Whole leopard: half a stop exposure, a little more contrast, boost to clarity, dehaze (yes, I took the plunge to Lightroom 6.3), sharpening
pard head: A few adjustments so that it tones better with the body

Leopard eyes: Just to accentuate them a bit

Bight white on flanks: reduce exposure a little

Further thoughts welcome

Dave

[davidedric]

How about your latest edit with a white balance adjustment?

Thanks, Terry, excellent idea to tweak the white balance - though I would cool it a little less.

Dave

[Dave Humphries]

Another way to make a vignette look natural is to manually draw it using an irregular shape rather than using the vignette tool.

I didn't know that was even possible, but I suppose it would be easy to do (for the software coders).

Learn something new every day

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks, Terry, excellent idea to tweak the white balance - though I would cool it a little less.

I agree Dave, not that I found yours too yellow anyway, the sun is shining afterall.

[Loose Canon]

Thanks, Terry, excellent idea to tweak the white balance - though I would cool it a little less.

Hi Dave!

Yeah, I could see where the adjustment might be a little too much in this case. I sampled the cat’s cheek for the illustration. I also sampled some other spots on the cat’s body to get an idea of what was going on. I thought the cast was most prominent on the face and found it a bit overwhelming to the point it was adversely affecting the cat’s natural coloring. The degree of correction pretty much confirms that and the closer I sampled to the face the more correction it took.

When I was sampling the thought occurred to me that if the shot were mine I would probably do more than one WB sample and blend them back together for a “custom” balance.

Anyway it's just a theory and YMMV! Your shot, your call! The point being a subject in the foliage like this is pretty much guaranteed to have a color cast caused by the sun lighting through said foliage with a digital capture!

Either way it’s a great shot of the cat and I wouldn’t even bother concerning myself with any of the leaves/twigs in front of the cat if the shot were mine.