Bald Eagle (or RAW vs JPG part 2)

[KurtPreston]

Sotterley eagle again. I actually underexposed the original pretty badly and recovering the shadow detail in RAW resulted in just a bit too much noise. It would have been a total loss if I had shot this in JPG. A friend convinced me to try RAW despite the larger file sizes and I have never regretted it since.

 

[Mousebaby]

Sotterley eagle again. I actually underexposed the original pretty badly and recovering the shadow detail in RAW resulted in just a bit too much noise. It would have been a total loss if I had shot this in JPG. A friend convinced me to try RAW despite the larger file sizes and I have never regretted it since.

OH WOW!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!!

 

[Loper]

Sotterley eagle again. I actually underexposed the original pretty badly and recovering the shadow detail in RAW resulted in just a bit too much noise. It would have been a total loss if I had shot this in JPG. A friend convinced me to try RAW despite the larger file sizes and I have never regretted it since.

Absolutely LOVELY!!!
Phyxius turned me on to raw, and since I started with raw, I have never shot jpg again. I agree the larger file sizes and different programs (for me to work with) was a bit daunting at first... Adobe Bridge and Adobe CR have made life much easier...

 

[hvp05]

Too bad Kom can't participate with his new camera.






BTW, I like the slight graininess.

 

[kom526]

Too bad Kom can't participate with his new camera.






BTW, I like the slight graininess.

I have some eagle pics from today, (not as nice as these) I'll post them soon enough. :babysteps:

 

[Tomcat]

Sotterley eagle again. I actually underexposed the original pretty badly and recovering the shadow detail in RAW resulted in just a bit too much noise. It would have been a total loss if I had shot this in JPG. A friend convinced me to try RAW despite the larger file sizes and I have never regretted it since.

I like the slight graininess.

Almost looks like an Audubon painting to me, very nice

 

[Phyxius]

Kurt, wow that's a nice shot!! What kind of focal length was this at? It's really an awesome shot.

Would you mind if I did a couple tweaks to it and then posted it here? They're really very minor, but they'll help me illustrate something else too. Which version of PS are you using? How dark are the shadows in the original?

 

[kom526]

A friend of mine from work is wondering what kind of set up you were using. (Lenses etc) He has a few eagles around his place (Chuck Co.) but hasn't had any luck with a shot yet.

 

[kom526]

Sunday afternoon in my neighbor's tree, finally had my camera with me.
Auto ISO 80 max zoom (48x d) no tripod which explains why they are SOOO out of center. I was drifting, clicking and praying. These are straight off the card unedited.

 

[KurtPreston]

Kurt, wow that's a nice shot!! What kind of focal length was this at? It's really an awesome shot.

Would you mind if I did a couple tweaks to it and then posted it here? They're really very minor, but they'll help me illustrate something else too. Which version of PS are you using? How dark are the shadows in the original?

Thanks! No problem, download it and mess with it to your heart's content in fact, here's a link to the original so you can see how underexposed it was. Also was probably at F6.3 for this shot. I use Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Camera Raw. Mostly Adobe Camera Raw adjustments and just minor sharpening and curves in CS3.

 

[hvp05]

in fact, here's a link to the original so you can see how underexposed it was.

Whoa! Definitely an improvement.

 

[KurtPreston]

A friend of mine from work is wondering what kind of set up you were using. (Lenses etc) He has a few eagles around his place (Chuck Co.) but hasn't had any luck with a shot yet.

Canon 40D, been using a Canon 100-400mm L series lens for the eagles. Been debating getting a flash extender (and a Speedlite) for eagles and osprey shots. They are normally top lit or back lit and fill flash might help alot. I normally shoot at around F6.3 to F8 depending on the light. try to keep the shutter speed up to 1/1600 or better to freeze the wings.

 

[kom526]

Canon 40D, been using a Canon 100-400mm L series lens for the eagles. Been debating getting a flash extender (and a Speedlite) for eagles and osprey shots. They are normally top lit or back lit and fill flash might help alot. I normally shoot at around F6.3 to F8 depending on the light. try to keep the shutter speed up to 1/1600 or better to freeze the wings.

Thanks a lot, I'll pass it on and he'll understand it all. I'm just starting to move beyond snapshots.

 

[Phyxius]

Thanks! No problem, download it and mess with it to your heart's content in fact, here's a link to the original so you can see how underexposed it was. Also was probably at F6.3 for this shot. I use Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Camera Raw. Mostly Adobe Camera Raw adjustments and just minor sharpening and curves in CS3.

Thanks Kurt and I'm sorry I took so long. I was having some issues with the "print screen" button in photoshop so that I could get the screen grabs for ya. Thanks also for posting the original, but when I took the jpg in ACR and played with fill light and the rest of the gizmos I got a pretty similar outcome...so I went ahead and just editted for the version you posted. My nitpicks were small because your picture is awesome!!

First are you familiar with thresholds in PS and how you can use them to find the black and white points of a picture?

First I went to Image -->Adjust-->Threshold and I took the slider down so that the whole image was white, then slowly brought it back up until I got a concentration of black. I marked this spot with cntrl + click. That's where the number one is, it's the spot on your picture closest to black. Next to find white I just took the slider alway the way up so that the image was black and slowly dragged it back until I had a concentration of white. I knew one would be the almost highlight by the head, so I marked it and a second "white" spot.

After they're marked hit cancel, you don't want to save the threshold, but it will save where you clicked with those little markers. Next I opened a new curves layer and used the eye droppers on the curve screen to select a black point and one of the white points. This brought down the shadows on the body a little more than I wanted to I painted back in some detail with a grey brush on the body in a layer mask.

Now, the only thing bugging me is the blue CA on the wing...I ran an action I have to remove color fringing, but that didn't get all of it (as you can see) so I opened a hue saturation level. I colorized to a brown and did a fair amount of desaturation and I masked anything I didn't wanted effected. I also played with opacity on this level, to keep the color there that was supposed to be there, so notice that the hue/sat level is at 47%.

My edited version with the threshold points visible for you.

Original Editted Version-

 

[Tomcat]

Wow, 99% of the time I'm using PSP, guess I'm going to have to figure out PS.

 

[KurtPreston]

Thanks Kurt and I'm sorry I took so long.

No problem, as you can see it took me forever to get back to you

I've never tried using thresholds to find the black and white points. I usually just guestimate where they are in curves when setting the points.

What you did was a 100% improvement! I especially liked that you got rid of the slight blue shadow cast. Although it sounded like a lot of hard work ... I'm also normally too lazy to mess with layer masks. Prefer to reshoot, but that is not always possible!