Walk on Wotter

[cigrainger]

Just looking for general critique. I'm a noob so any comments/criticism are welcome and encouraged.

 

[iflynething]

I think its a good picture but I would have liked to have seen more detail on the otter. Just a little to dark. It was just the lighting is all

~Michael~

 

[qUAntUm k]

im a photography newbie...i really like this photo...the colors, the ice water textures, DOF and compositional simplicity...i see how detail on the otter would make the photo better, but still think you successfully captured the magic!

 

[iflynething]

Oh, one thing I do like is the contrast between the Otter and the white snow

~Michael~

 

[DSLR noob]

For a newb you must be running some nice gear to get this big of an image with a wild animal. You could brighten the image, and if you absolutely had to, agjust the contrast a little bit. You can also have fun with saturation.

 

[cigrainger]

Thanks guys! Nah, really cheap gear -- Canon AE-1 program, and a £30 60-300mm lens. It's not wild though, it's in a zoo!

Thanks for the comments. Is this any better?

 

[LaFoto]

I feel that if any brightening-up should be done, it should be done on the otter alone, but not on the whole photo for that will blow out the white of the snow patches - as you can see in your edit.
I'd throw a well-feathered lasso around the otter and try to only make the otter brighter ... but only to an extent that no one will see a halo! May I try, just to see if it is possible?

 

[cigrainger]

I feel that if any brightening-up should be done, it should be done on the otter alone, but not on the whole photo for that will blow out the white of the snow patches - as you can see in your edit.
I'd throw a well-feathered lasso around the otter and try to only make the otter brighter ... but only to an extent that no one will see a halo! May I try, just to see if it is possible?

Feel free! Thanks for the advice. I'm just using a free program right now called GraphicConverter for Mac, but I should be getting either Photoshop CS2 or CS3 beta on Friday, which will be nice. I used to be rather alright in Photoshop, but that was back in the Photoshop 8 days, and more for drafting and whatnot than digital photo editing. I've been watching some Photoshop tutorial podcasts though!

 

[LaFoto]

Well, the Photoshop version that I am using still is the ancient old 6.0 version! :shock:
And even that was so full of things that I was quite a bit afraid of ever using it for a long long time!

But here's what I have come up with (and I cropped the pic a little differently, too, as you will see):

I am not sure it is any better at all ...

 

[Imagee]

I think the 2nd crop is a much stronger image than the 1st.