Horse on the hill

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi All,

I would love some feedback on this one.

I will first post the original pic as it came out of the camera and then I will post the second one that I processed from RAW, adding a bit of warmth and trying to bring out more detail in the horse.

I like the pic, but just don't think my PP skills are up to the job in terms of bringing the best out in it.

Any advice or help will be gratefully received.

| D90 | 18-200mm VR @ 112mm | f/8 | 1/250 sec | ISO 200 |

Original:



Processed:



Many thanks,

Tommy

[didymus]

Can you provide an explanation as to what PP you applied?
I would use a mask and only work on the horse, the rest of the image is fine!

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the reply.

I opened the NEF file in ACR and did the following:

Increased the temperature a little
Increased the fill light slider
Increased the vibrancy and saturation a touch
Did a bit of sharpening
Cropped it slightly

Then in CS3:

I made a slight S-curve
Resized for the web and checked the sharpening

Do I need to go into anymore detail than this? I am on a different PC, but could post the settings from ACR later if it would help?

Rob (Carregwen) has kindly offered to work on the RAW file for me so we'll see what he comes up with.

I will do as you suggest and mask the horse and play about with it in isolation to the background and see what I can come up with as well.

The main problem I was having when trying to bring back detail in the horse was that lightening it too much made it wishy-washy and increasing contrast made it too dark in places. increasing colour saturation also made the hair on his tail too bright...

What settings would you suggest I play with?

[carregwen]

Hi Tommy

I had a go at editing the RAW you sent me, but I can't do anything decent with it. The horse is just too dark against the back light. What you really needed here was to get closer and use fill-flash. It wouldn't have affected the background but would have given enough light on the horse to counter-act the back-light from the sun. I guess that at 112mm on an APS-C camera you were outside the range of your flash? It can be done in Photoshop, but I think it just looks messy.

Sorry!

[jiro]

Is it OK if I play with your image, Tommy?

Here is what I came up with:


k54dxfEn by jiro bau, on Flickr

All adjustments was done inside ACDSEE Pro 3 software.

Adjustments made:
1. Highlight enhancement set to 100.
2. Contrast increased to 14
3. White Balance adjusted to the following values: Temp >33, Tint > 9, Strength > 100
4. Lighting Adjusted to the following values: Shadows > 62, Midtones > -37, Highlights > -33.
5. Color adjustments made: Slight desaturation to blue, slight increase to red.
6. Sharpening: 100, Radius > 2, Threshold > 1.
7. Noise Reduction: 50% on luminance, 50% on color.

NOTE: Full copyright of this image belongs to Tommy. Image is set to private mode so that means only members of CiC can view this. Specific copyright notice was posted on my flickr account naming Tommy as the full owner of this image. Thank you.

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi Rob,

Not to worry, it was only really a snapshot anyways as I was walking up the field. I wasn't expecting him to play ball and pose for me briefly!

I was just looking through the shots I took that day and quite liked it but, like you, couldn't really get it to look good enough!

Thanks for your efforts anyways! Much appreciated

[carregwen]

Hi Rob,

Not to worry, it was only really a snapshot anyways as I was walking up the field. I wasn't expecting him to play ball and pose for me briefly!

I was just looking through the shots I took that day and quite liked it but, like you, couldn't really get it to look good enough!

Thanks for your efforts anyways! Much appreciated

I quite often come across scenes like this. Next time I do I'll try fill-flash versus no flash, to show the difference. Flash, either flash gun, or studio flash can make all the difference in difficult lighting conditions.

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi Jiro,

Many thanks for having a go at this!

I like what you have done, especially given that you were working with the JPEG...

I'm wondering if you could do better than me and Rob with the RAW file? Please do not feel obliged, but would you like to give it a go? If so, I can email you a link to the file.

Cheers

PS. Thanks for the disclaimer and the efforts to maintain my ownership of the image! (Un)fortunately I'm not that good yet so it doesn't really matter though!

[jiro]

Hi Jiro,

Many thanks for having a go at this!

I like what you have done, especially given that you were working with the JPEG...

I'm wondering if you could do better than me and Rob with the RAW file? Please do not feel obliged, but would you like to give it a go? If so, I can email you a link to the file.

Cheers

PS. Thanks for the disclaimer and the efforts to maintain my ownership of the image! (Un)fortunately I'm not that good yet so it doesn't really matter though!

Thanks, Tommy. I'm glad you did not get angry with me editing your work. I just want to clarify something if I may:

1. There is no "better" or "worse" in editing as we have our own preferences. It's simply a matter of agreeing on what was done on the post-processing. I am a total newbie compared to a lot of the members here and I have high respect for their work.

2. It is always the original photographer (you, in this example) that holds the full copyright and ownership of your work regardless of who edited it. Start owning your work, bro'. Later on, when you get better it will protect your work big time.

Sure, if you want you can send me the RAW file. The good thing about ACDSEE PRO 3 is that it can handle RAW as well as JPEG. If you want a cheap alternative to Adobe Lightroom this little software can do it, and it can do a lot of batch processing, too. LOL!

[RockNGoalStar]

I quite often come across scenes like this. Next time I do I'll try fill-flash versus no flash, to show the difference. Flash, either flash gun, or studio flash can make all the difference in difficult lighting conditions.

I can see how a good flash would have helped here, but if you can provide an example that would be cool!

However, even if I had a good flash gun (which unfortunately i don't!) the (rather large and imposing) horse was following me up 'his' field quite rapidly and didn't stand still too long! If i'd have gone especially to photograph him then the (currently non-existent) flash may have been to hand, but if it wasn't then in the time it would have taken me to get it out of my bag he would have moved!

There is a lesson to be learnt here somewhere! And I think I have learnt several!

As an aside, what do you think of Jiro's efforts? I have sent him the link to the RAW file to see if he really is a miracle-worker!

[jiro]

File downloaded and finished working on the pp. Kindly send me a pm re your email address as the file is about 5MB in size. Thanks.

[RockNGoalStar]

Just at the pub mate, but looking forward to seeing it later!

Cheers!

[jiro]

Just at the pub mate, but looking forward to seeing it later!

Cheers!

File sent. Cheers!

[RockNGoalStar]

I hope Jiro doesn't mind me posting this, but here is his attempt at editing my horse picture.



I think you've done a pretty damn good job mate! Well done and thanks for your time and effort!

[jiro]

I hope Jiro doesn't mind me posting this, but here is his attempt at editing my horse picture.

I think you've done a pretty damn good job mate! Well done and thanks for your time and effort!

Tommy, thanks again for the opportunity to work on your image. I'm glad you appreciate it. Cheers mate!

[didymus]

Tommy,

I am new at all this myself!!

That is enough PP information for me. I am more interested in what steps are/were taken than the actual settings that were used. As others have said here and elsewhere, it is the person editing the image that determines the settings...

...if we were able to determine what situations we would come upon during our walks, we would not need such heavily laden backpacks!

... descent flash gun? --> Lumopro LP160, does a good job for a lot less than its Canon or Nikon equivalent.

[didymus]

Jiro,

... I am a total newbie compared to a lot of the members here and I have high respect for their work.

You are being modest. You have posted some excellent photographs!

[jiro]

Jiro,

You are being modest. You have posted some excellent photographs!

But I am, Gary. I only started using a digital SLR (my Nikon D70) last November, 2010. I used to shoot film before but that was 10 - 12 years ago. Took me a hard time understanding exposure before since developing and printing is a bit expensive back then. I guess because it's much faster to see your pictures and gauge your shots with a digital camera, your learning curve is much steeper than in film. Thank you very much for the warm comment. I really appreciate it.

[didymus]

You are welcome. Your images are very thought provoking.