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Image Critiques Wildlife Critiques
1

Kristen_SmithJuly 09, 2023_1160299-Enhanced-NR-Edit.jpg
Kristen_SmithJuly 09, 2023_1160299-Enhanced-NR-Edit.jpg2000Ă—1125 1.18 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

Each turtle could fit in your hand, but they were curious about me in the kayak just a few yards away. These old snags and stumps are so important for them and for other plants, animals and insects. This area is the conjunction of a stream and a river and has lots of habitat like this and so abounds in activity. I spent a few hours there yesterday and got some video of these two as well. Lots to process!

Specific Feedback

I was drawn by the symmetry and the centeredness of the composition so didn’t crop to offset anything. Does it work for you? Also there is a reflection here as there was in some other shots, but I felt it was too strong a pull and cropped it away. Would you rather see it?

Technical Details

Handheld in the kayak, in gusty wind, but luckily so many stumps are nearby I could get the bow between two and the keel up against a submerged one so I was relatively steady.

image

Lr for the crop to 16:9 and some work to massage the tonalities with the usual tools. Wb nudge, lens correction and then a denoise AI operation which I layered in Photoshop with a Topaz Sharpen AI layer and then further blurred spots where the bg foliage and stuff on the water was a bit overwhelming. For this I used the Neural Depth Blur which you can download a beta version with your release version of Ps. Also some distraction removal and a slight freehand vignette.

1 Like
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Kris, my first impression was this looks like a face! This is just confirmation that my eyes are worse than I thought… . . or maybe better?? At any rate, what I am enjoy most is the casual, not posed, kind of composition and how the turtles are so involved with you. . .seemingly. Great shot!

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I really like your technique & crisp focus, tutles really stand out!
I may tone down the the plateform they are on, also tone down the saturated greens on the top edge.

4

Thanks @linda_mellor & @JRajput for taking a look and leaving your thoughts. Funny, I hadn’t noticed the face before, but now I do. And I can revisit the stump a bit and maybe add some dehaze or something to bring down the luminosity there. It might help. I wondered about that green at the top, too. Guess I was right!

1 Like