Cat or Dragon you decide what you see

Image Critiques Abstract Nature Critiques
1

Cat Face in the Wood.jpg
Cat Face in the Wood.jpg2062Ă—1498 1.41 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

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

Description

Going to Jekyll Is. has been a huge learning curve for me. The harsh sun proved to be a challenge. But i was more impressed and interested in the texture and shapes in the driftwood.
So I pulled out the macro lens and went on a different direction..

Specific Feedback

I welcome all views.. Yes I kept it as raw and natural as I could. Old Film look … But what do you see.

Technical Details

ISO 400. shutter 400. f 22 Edited in Photoshop

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2

Gill,

Very cool! I definitely see a “creature,” and I certainly can see the cat - I’d say more like an ancient cat - like a saber-tooth.

You did very well to handle the hot sun and resulting high contrast. The contrast is important here - although I will say IMHO, the whites are a bit blown in the obvious areas. Reducing the brightness I don’t think reduce the interest or even the contrast for that matter.

I went ahead to see if the bright whites could be reduced and what impact that may have. Once I opened up… what the heck, here’s an “alternate” version. Can’t say it’s an improvement, but just an idea. I did drop the highlights in ACR, but also separate luminosity and burn adjustment layers. And to emphasze the creature I thought a crop might work. Plus, I would have recommend cropping the open spaces on the left anyway.

Great patterns and textures here giving this intimate scene some possibilities. I cropped square, rotated and flipped. Here’s one:

Cat-Face-in-the-Wood
Cat-Face-in-the-Wood1455Ă—1455 1.01 MB

3

WOW. I appreciate that so much. You really improved my image and brought a whole new vibe to this image. This is what the NPN is all about. I’ll use your edit in my book. Thanks. :folded_hands::globe_showing_americas::folded_hands::camera_with_flash::camera_with_flash:

4

A very cool find! @Lon_Overacker has a great take here. I wonder if the original raw has any highlight detail that can be recovered. Once in PS the tones are much less malleable than in the raw file – less tonal overhead.

This probably was too big a subject, but sometimes in harsh sun you can shade a subject with your body or a diffusion screen. Having an assistant is helpful.

5

Harsh sun and torture wood. I tried to keep that vibe in the images. Driftwood Beach is not pretty. It’s very worn and beaten. But I had fun. Here at 73 I keep it fun.

Thanks.

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