Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Another image of the same bird as my previous one. Same view, but a different frame.
Specific Feedback
For some reason, this image appeals to me a little more than the previous one. The details on the decorative primaries and converts are also a little more sharper in this frame. I am interested to know if you feel the same.
Technical Details
840mm on tripod, ISO3200, 1/25s@F5.6.
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Hi Govin,
Really beautiful bird well captured. Detail on the lower feathers looks good except the tail which appears to be out of the focal plane or something in the foreground blocking our view. That orange on the head and upper body is very vivid - what a striking bird. I’m wondering if more detail can be eeked out of the orange feathers but I’m guessing those feathers are mighty fine. I should note that I’m not familiar with this species. Nice catch.
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Excellent, Govind. I do like this one at least as well as your first post of this bird. The out of focus foreground vegetation is a bit unfortunate, but definitely not a killer problem. There is an odd effect of that vegetation about half way up the left edge that draws the eye and you might want to do something about that.
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I think I’d go with your first post as I like that pose better and the beak shows and there’s more detail in the tail area.
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Lovely opportunity but the reds are lacking detail because they are blown out. You can go back to the raw file and look at the various color profiles to find one that has tamer colors, then look at adjustments to the Temp and Tint sliders. I think you can make a considerable improvement.
If it was shot as a JPEG, go to Selective Color and play with the sliders in the Red channel.
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Thanks for your valuable feedback and suggestions, @Dennis_Plank, @Allen_Sparks, @Allen_Brooks, @Diane_Miller. A little more background on this shot - as you can tell from the shutter speed and ISO, the light was quite low inside the forest and I had to use a shallow DOF with the focus on the back/head. This caused the tail being a little OOF. The foliage in the foreground does not help either. Truth be told, when I looked at the shutter speed, I was surprised how sharp the image turned out.
Re Diane’s point, the image appears to be a tad more saturated here than in my original - could also be a browser behavior. I will keep that i mind when when I post images here.
You posted the image correctly in sRGB – and that is assuming you converted it to sRGB from your working space. If you “assigned” sRGB, you distorted the colors.
But assuming the posted image correctly shows the colors of your working file, the reds are badly crushed, without detail. That is a problem for reds but it can be dealt with. Even from the JPEG, there are details there that can be dragged out. It can be done much better from the raw file.
And this could be made a richer red without saturation, which chokes the tones.
And your original for side-by-side comparison.
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Thanks much for your critique and reworking the image, @Diane_Miller. It is certainly very instructive for me to see the extra details on the subject you were able to get with the reds pulled back. I went back to my image and looked at the reds and you are right - they were blown. One thing I noticed in your edit is that you have a significant amount of yellows, which I did not see on the bird. I have reprocessed the image with your suggestions with the reds toned down a bit and also @Dennis_Plank’s to get rid of the OOF branch on the left top corner. Hope it looks better.
The yellows came from my digging out the limited tonal detail in the JPEG, where there is a hint of them. The overall red tone could be modified a little with Selective Color, adding more Magenta.
I wonder if the reds are still more tonally flat than they could be from a raw file, although there will be limitations from shooting it in the shade. After doing the best in the raw stage, you might try a Select > Color Range and look at options, even including Nik CEP Tonal Contrast or Detail Extractor. Even an object in the shade will have some modeling from subtle shadows.
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Thanks again, Diane. I will look at the RAW file and see if there is a way to dig out more details. I suspect I might have to bring down the exposure a bit to get the upper red ranges to below limits. Let me see what I can do.
Thanks for your suggestions - they are really helpful.
Start with a Profile that doesn’t saturate things too much. A raw file should look a little flat, at least in the first stages. Tweak the Temp and Tint sliders to start, and try bringing Shadows up first. Those things could change the histogram a lot. Then Blacks darkened very carefully, if necessary, to see if you can get a well-contained histogram. The Saturation slider should be the last thing to touch, and can be done in PS after tonalities are set in the raw file. And even in PS, Selective Color may be a better option than Saturation.
In PS, the TK tonal masking tools might be useful, with a lot of contrast added to a midtone selection. Maybe…
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@Diane_Miller has some gret advice on processing. Just a note that from other images Iseen of this bird’s near relative, the reds are pretty much saturated in real life, so it’s a very delicate balance, similar to trying to process a black bird and get detail without making it look too gray.
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