Heavy Horses - Carp Fair

[Manfred M]

This shot is one I took a number of years back. I always liked it, but did not have the skills to process it in a way that I liked. I spent some time this weekend reworking it.

The Carp Fair has been a regular fall event since 1880. It used to be a village, but was amalgamated into the City of Ottawa in 2001. This is still a fairly rural area. These heavy horses are being paraded around before heading to the judging area.

[Round Tuit]

Is this a "work in progress" ?
I ask because there are significant halos around the driver and passenger's heads as well as the horse's ears where they stand against the sky. I also find the coloring of the horses somewhat unnatural looking.

[DanK]

I have to agree with Andre. Manfred, IMHO, this doesn't live up to your normally exemplary processing. The halos appear along the drivers' sleeves as well as their heads. And the balance of contrast across the image seems off to me. I suspect you wanted to highlight the horses, but the relative high contrast and full tonal range on the horses contrasts uncomfortably with the washed-out look of the drives and background.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Andre and Dan - this shot is over 11 years old and was taken with the 12MP D90, just when I was getting into serious photography and my capture skills were not quite where they are today. I always like the composition, but was never happy with the image, so I tried a few processing tricks. I cleaned up the worst of the halos, but there are lots of artifacts from some resizing (Topaz Gigapixel AI). I will probably not go for print on this one..

The lead horses were a strange gray tone with light harnesses look strange on them. The four rear horses are white, so a bit of an odd mix. The sky was textureless so the halos are also a result of pushing textures into that part of the image

Thanks for the feedback, as it is along the lines of my own thoughts. You may see this image again, when I have refined it some more.

[escape]

I love that the Blues Brothers are driving the team. That had to be a crowd-pleaser.

[billtils]

Agree with the others, some strong haloes ... very obvious on the drivers, but also present in the horses's ears.