Two deer from sunnier times

[andy700]

Here are a couple more pictures of a deer a few months ago

 

[Frequency]

Originally these are very good; but i think you enhanced green; the deer looks green tinted

Still beautiful

Regards

 

[andy700]

Thanks Frequency, I did boost the warmth and saturation a bit, which may not have helped. The deer was in the shade, with the light from over my right shoulder, from what I can remember, the clear patch high the picture was getting the sunlight.
Andy

 

[Overread]

The first deer looks very green to me as well and I suspect that its not the light but the fact that you've got an error in the white balance of the shot. Auto white balance (what most people use) works very well most of the time, but can slip up and make errors.

Out of interest did you shoot these in RAW or JPEG mode? If its JPEG you can try to make a correction, though it might take some time to get it looking correct and not forced - if RAW its a lot easier

 

[andy700]

The first deer looks very green to me as well and I suspect that its not the light but the fact that you've got an error in the white balance of the shot. Auto white balance (what most people use) works very well most of the time, but can slip up and make errors.

Out of interest did you shoot these in RAW or JPEG mode? If its JPEG you can try to make a correction, though it might take some time to get it looking correct and not forced - if RAW its a lot easier

Thanks for the comments, you are both right, it is very green. Yes, they were shot in RAW, but I only have limited editing facilities (No Photoshop). I have had another attempt at them in the meantime, and what I may do, is delete the original images from my gallery and replace them with the reworked attempts. In order to add a bit of life to the RAW shots, I boosted the colour temperature and saturation, which in turn made the green become predominant.
The original RAW images look very lifeless to me (I am still new to this), because the shots were taken in the morning, and the light was really awesome, particularly as the deer was in the shade.
In the reworked images, I have been careful to follow identical settings for both shots - set RGB colour, then sharpen by same amount. I use Image Data Converter, and I always click the "colour balance" box.
My reworked examples have no trace of green (at least to my eyes) to them, so I would appreciate comments, when I post them.
Thanks,
Andy

 

[andy700]

Here are two reworked RAW files

As always, please let me know how these look.
Thanks

 

[Overread]

Much improved over the originals indeed!

You don't need photoshop to get good results (I've only got elements myself and many use GIMP which (whilst having a harder interface) is totally free to download and use).

When it comes to RAW photos they do need editing to get the best out of them and its not uncommon for people to feel that the RAWs look less than impressive when they move to RAW from JPEG - a mark of how edited JPEGs are in camera already.

When you process the RAWs though there are a few tricks you can use to add a bit of "punch" to the final image:

1) Contrast slider - you've found this already though watch out for the background and white areas. Boosting contrast will take whites up and can end up overexposing them so keep an eye on your histogram display. In backgrounds make sure you don't end up getting bands of colour running through with clear boundaries (called banding)

2) Blacks slider - in more washed out shots boosting this up can help to give a bit more definition to the shot. Generally you dont' need to slide this as much to get a good effect

3) Clarity tool (might not have this so read up on highpass sharpening which is the same effect but a different method). Make sure to zoom in when using this to make sure you're not introducing artifacts to the shot and also view the shot as a whole since this can cause odd fake shadows and halos to form if you move the slider too far

 

[andy700]

Much improved over the originals indeed!

You don't need photoshop to get good results (I've only got elements myself and many use GIMP which (whilst having a harder interface) is totally free to download and use).

When it comes to RAW photos they do need editing to get the best out of them and its not uncommon for people to feel that the RAWs look less than impressive when they move to RAW from JPEG - a mark of how edited JPEGs are in camera already.

When you process the RAWs though there are a few tricks you can use to add a bit of "punch" to the final image:

1) Contrast slider - you've found this already though watch out for the background and white areas. Boosting contrast will take whites up and can end up overexposing them so keep an eye on your histogram display. In backgrounds make sure you don't end up getting bands of colour running through with clear boundaries (called banding)

2) Blacks slider - in more washed out shots boosting this up can help to give a bit more definition to the shot. Generally you dont' need to slide this as much to get a good effect

3) Clarity tool (might not have this so read up on highpass sharpening which is the same effect but a different method). Make sure to zoom in when using this to make sure you're not introducing artifacts to the shot and also view the shot as a whole since this can cause odd fake shadows and halos to form if you move the slider too far

Thanks, I will have a look at that, especially the "Black" values, because I know that can improve images.
I have an early version of Elelments from years ago loaded on an old laptop, but cannot use it because the current image files are so big
I also have the disc and instructions, but it doesn't want to load on my current PC which is running Vista
Sometimes you just can't win.
I will just concentrate on trying to get decent images out of the camera.

 

[Overread]

On vista have you tried turning off "User Account Control" ? I've found a lot of vista problems go away when you turn that thing off (go to your user control point - where you set accounts and passwords and the last item on the list lets you turn user account control on/off)

 

[Frequency]

Now they are cool

Regards