George in the RAW

[SARtech]

Hi everyone!
George flew right past me today... really close! He is SO gorgeous. I shot RAW today there for the first time. I could use your your help.
First... vertical or horizontal?
Second... Do you pros edit the RAW image in the camera's program or in Photoshop? (I only have Elements 6.0) Then how do you save it for enlargments?
In the 3rd one, I did selections on the head and tail and adjusted the lighting on those areas only. Does that look ok? I have no clue what to do with the rest of him. Any suggestions?
(Cute squirrel was a bonus)

Kristine

[Canon_Bob]

Hi Kristine,

I took a quick crack at the third image for you:


So basically you were sufering a bit from the curse of the Bald Eagle here. White head, and dark body. Drives photographers nuts. The only way to shoot Bald Eagles well is to meter off the head, but push the exposure as far as you can without getting flashies. The trick is to bring out as much detail in the body as possible without burning the head. It looks to me that your camera metered off the sky. Head was a bit blown, and not much detail in the body. I was able to bring some of it back by using adjustment layers and tweaking exposure. I also did a NR pass on the corrected dark area, and sharpened once I had done a bit of cloning to fix the burned spot on the face. Total work: 5 minutes. Sadly, there wasn't enough data in the darks to really improve it much. You can still see the borders where I did the layer masks, but I figured that would help illustrate the selections I made.

[SARtech]

Thanks Bob. I was trying to have the spot meter on his head, but he came in so fast and so close it was unexpected and I didn't zoom out so I have 7 frames with him all over the place...lol Top this off with I was so excited I don't think I was breathing.
This one was the sharpest. I shot this time in 400 ISO thinking it would look sharper. I'm thinking now it was mistake #2!
800 probably would have looked better.
Did you do these corrections in Photoshop?

[SARtech]

I meant to say I shot in 200 ISO (not 400)

[Canon_Bob]

Yes, I used Photoshop. Spot metering won't work very well on birds in flight. You're far better off using manual mode when shooting a Bald Eagle against a clear blue sky. I'd have probably metered off the sky and gone +2/3 with my camera...then set to manual. Yours may be different, though....so you'll have to experiment.

[AgingEyes]

I'd meter off my palm and open up one stop (I still don't know which part of the sky to take the reading from). Just make sure your palm and where the eagle will be are under the same kind of light. If you compare a reading off a gray card and your palm, chances are it's about one stop difference. Once you know that difference, your palm becomes the gray card you carry with you all the time.

FWIW, I use manual exposure mode primarily.

[SARtech]

Funny thing is, I did meter off the sky and +1 but didn't have time to put it in manual. I got down to the river, got out of the truck, metered the sky and was just adjusting the exposure and here he came! shoot! shoot! shoot! OK you guys... manual it is next weekend if he's still here. I tried what you did Bob, but on my own. Came out pretty good I think. Took WAY to long though. LOL

[Singletracklovr]

Nice shot SARtech. I'm not about to offer PP tips since I am just learning that myself.
However I prefer vert. on your tight crop and horz. with a little more sky to the right or in the direction the bird is flying.

I never get tired of looking at eagles...

[SARtech]

Thanks you! I think I prefer the vertical myself.

Kristine