Snowy Owl

[padrepaul77]

Hi all,

Took this snowy owl a couple of weeks ago. Fortunate to have good light from behind. Processed raw, but sometimes get too intense on saturation. Thanks for any comments.

Take care,
Fr. P

 

[DarkShadow]

How about a little editing maybe like this.

 

[ceeboy14]

Or...

 

[EIngerson]

I like the original. It shows the time of day it was photographed. I'd love to run across a couple owls. Great capture OP.

 

[DarkShadow]

Or...

View attachment 40767

Hi Ceeboy' may I ask what you use for edit software.

 

[DarkShadow]

I like the original. It shows the time of day it was photographed. I'd love to run across a couple owls. Great capture OP.

You and I both,what a beautiful animal.

 

[ceeboy14]

Or...

View attachment 40767

Hi Ceeboy' may I ask what you use for edit software.

Mostly I used CS6. Set the white and black points, though in this case, more importantly the gray point. I did use Nik's Viveza to destaurate the overabundance of "orange." It's a snowy owl not a burnt orange owl no matter what time of the day shot and resetting (or first time setting) the proper points says it wasn't shot all that early in the am. Sky is too blue to believe otherwise. The data doesn't lie. This doesn't mean you can't alter the data to your own liking, but one runs a great danger in losing war to win a battle.

 

[DarkShadow]

Thanks.

 

[ceeboy14]

This is what came up on my screen when I set the white point in curves and the gray point which I set to an area just below his beak, matching the 18% gray value in my color matcher.



The data doesn't lie.

 

[padrepaul77]

Thanks gang. It was during "magic hour" and like I said I tend to go saturation happy on my images and "overcook" them a bit. I like the weeks and will probably create a couple of images. Snowys are awesome birds.

 

[EIngerson]

Or...

View attachment 40767

Hi Ceeboy' may I ask what you use for edit software.

Mostly I used CS6. Set the white and black points, though in this case, more importantly the gray point. I did use Nik's Viveza to destaurate the overabundance of "orange." It's a snowy owl not a burnt orange owl no matter what time of the day shot and resetting (or first time setting) the proper points says it wasn't shot all that early in the am. Sky is too blue to believe otherwise. The data doesn't lie. This doesn't mean you can't alter the data to your own liking, but one runs a great danger in losing war to win a battle.

I agree with you whole heartedly when talking proper points. However, it wasn't shot in a studio, it was shot in the wild with natural lighting influence on the subject. Maybe I live a little dangerous, but I personally wouldn't change a thing about the owl. It's warm looking for a reason.

 

[ceeboy14]

And, Eric I will continue to disagree with you. A white/black/gray point is a white/black/gray point no matter the setting. I'd wager a good lunch and a few beers a gray card would have resulted in something much closer to my edit than the original. I would like him to so that if he has a set of cards and shoot at exactly the same hour then post the RAW image.

It's not warm looking for the right reason; it is oversaturated, inproperly balanced and overprocessed looking. I went back to his posted image, set the white and black points then set the gray point in six different locations. I had to go to almost 44% K to get that much orange but then everything went to hay so it would be impossible to use that as an indicator.

On this one, I used a "non-gray, gray to warm it up a bit...

 

[EIngerson]

Ceeboy, It's cool we disagree. I don't argue anything you stated as being wrong. The only difference is, I don't rely on "rules" to tell me if an image looks good. I see the same things you do, but barring a few exceptions (sky color) I liked the tones of the original image. The warm colors scream sunrise to me. Whites don't have to be white on a wild animal looking at the sunrise. I'll continue to disagree too. lol. I don't dislike your edit, I think it removes the fresh morning atmosphere.

 

[HL45]

Nice capture