The gray foxes hang around my property a lot, but this female seems particularly comfortable with my presence.
Any. I tied to tone down the rock, but could never get it quite where I wanted it. I finally simply cropped most of it out.
Canon 60D, Canon 70-300mm IS USM Zoom, f/8, 1/500 sec., ISO 1000. Processed in ACR and PSE 2020 for exposure and cropping, with a luminosity mask applied to the rock. Topaz DeNoise
I like the shooting angle of this image much more than your prior post. Feels more personal.
My first reaction was that the image is over saturated, and the greens in particular are dominant and detract from the subject. The face is pretty dark, and the rock in the foreground is pretty bright. All of those details matter in post.
Here’s a version addressing all of those things. See what you think.
Thanks @Keith_Bauer. Yes, those are improvements. I sorta lost track of the rest of the image, concentrating so hard on that rock.
Good to see you getting a lower angle. @Keith_Bauer made some good suggestions. I don’t know your processing software but if you have Curves, select the rock and just bring the upper right end of the 45 degree tone line straight down a little to lower the brightest areas, then the middle down more if needed to darken mid-tones. Pulling the LL end up will lighten the darkest tones. The ends determine contrast and the mid-point determines brightness. Or you may have a Brightness/Contrast slider that can do the same with less control.
Thanks @Diane_Miller. I don’t see a ‘curves’ adjustment in PSE, but I’ll look further. There is, of course, a Brightness/Contrast adjustment, and that worked reasonably well on the jpeg. I haven’t tried it on the RAW file, yet.
The reduced saturation version improves the comp immensely. Next time, try to get more DOF as the tip of the nose and muzzle are soft. The pose and low camera position are ideal. Please keep submitting these as I have never seen a gray fox in the wild and your photos are the next best thing to see one of these guys in the wild…Jim
Thanks @Jim_Zablotny. I will try to get more photos before the family breaks up and goes their separate ways - which should be soon.
You already have good suggestions and @Keith_Bauer made some fine changes, including the noise ! The image doesn’t appear to be critically sharp.
