Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
The Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge in Northern California had a nice number of geese and ducks the last week of January this year. We got up early and caught some nice light with these snow geese and the Coast Range in the BG. I cloned out a few rice trailers in the BG.
Technical Details
Used Topaz DeNoise and Sharpen
Canon 7D MII, f20, 1/800 sec, iso 1600, -1 exp bias, 222 mm (100-400/1.4x TC)
Lovely image in what appears to be a diverse landscape. You also may want to sharpen the image a bit more as the geese look a little soft. Also, reducing the noise in the background would help. I did this with Topaz Photo Ai with good results. I tried to attach the image, but it changed to weird colors when I downloaded it. There’s a lot going on in this image. Might you have two separate images here - one of the ducks or geese and the other of the background starting in the farthest green grass where there appear to be more white geese?
A nice scene; for me you’ve captured the feeling of the refuge. Are there some Ross’s geese in the front?
Hi Ed, I like this expansive scene you have captured with good exposure and sharpness on the birds in front with interesting BG layers for us to explore as well. Nice environmental image. Ideally none of the birds in front would be cut off but that’s a minor point. Well done.
@Larry_Greenbaum, the color issue would be because the posted image does not have an embedded RGB profile. Doing that is a small step that can prevent some browsers from displaying colors incorrectly. It is also important to have the PS Color Settings checked to show when there is either not a color profile or one that is not matched to your working space. Both situations require you to make an appropriate choice among those offered. Converting to your working space is necessary to see an accurate histogram.
I thought I recognized those two clumps of trees in the background. I miss visiting the SNWR since we moved to Colorado, and the enormous numbers of snow geese that travel through there. I also suspect there are several Ross’ geese included in the photo. I was curious about their discolored heads - just lots and lots of mud burying their favored foods due to all the rain? Since your ISO was so high, I would recommend using a denoise app. Otherwise, I like it as-is just for the fond memories it gave me.
@Larry_Greenbaum thank you for working on this for me. I went back and tried to resharpen the geese, but it just seemed to add more noise.
@Allen_Sparks , thank you for your suggested change here Allen. I went back and cloned out the partial bird on the right. I’d already removed bird parts from the left.
@Diane_Miller I converted the file to sRGB so that may help with the weird colors when it was downloaded by Larry.
@Denise_Dethlefsen thanks for the suggestion for the denoise app. I need to find one to start using other than what is in my PS Elements software.
@Allen_Brooks thanks, yes, there was a good mix of both snow geese and Ross’s geese in there.
Topaz Denoise is incredible. It works as a plug-in with PS – it appears in the filter menu and I apply it to the BG layer (or a new layer copy of it) first thing when I open an adjusted raw file into PS. There are several algorithms but the Low Light model is almost always the best. It does a little very subtle (pixel level) sharpening, with an adjustable slider.
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Thank you @Diane_Miller I will look it up and plug it in.
@Diane, I finally got around to buying the Topaz Denoise plug in, and you’re absolutely right it is an incredible tool. Thank you for your help with this.
