Cold Owl

[afdlips]

IMO the POV and colours are excellent in this shot! there is deffinitley a symmetry with the braches, they act as kind of a natural vignette! Great Job and Welcome!!!:thumbsup:

thanks! i am very impressed with this site. i cant believe how quick everyone jumps to critiquing and helping me out! ive been so caught up with the subject of the photo i didnt even think about the back ground.

[Loupey]

i would be enthralled to see it. please post it! thanks.

OK, here is my interpretation of your original shot.

Used the bark and snow as reference to adjust the color.

[Ronnoco]

What gives this shot great impact is the expression in the eyes and the sharp focus in the feathers. Given the circumstances it was a great catch.

I would suggest some minor post processing to take out that little branch and snow directly in front of the owl and to brighten the area around the eyes a bit.

As to comments about the busy background, it is possible in post-processing to selectively defocus the bacground too, if that is what the photographer wants.

Ronnoco

[afdlips]

OK, here is my interpretation of your original shot.

Used the bark and snow as reference to adjust the color.

thanks! i like what you have done. originally i generated this in Photomatix and for some reason i was able to tone map it despite the fact that it wasnt an HDR. it gave it a purple cast that was ok with me, but it gave me the luminosity i wanted. here you have the luminosity right, while still giving it a more natural feel to it.

[afdlips]

What gives this shot great impact is the expression in the eyes and the sharp focus in the feathers. Given the circumstances it was a great catch.

I would suggest some minor post processing to take out that little branch and snow directly in front of the owl and to brighten the area around the eyes a bit.

As to comments about the busy background, it is possible in post-processing to selectively defocus the bacground too, if that is what the photographer wants.

Ronnoco

thanks! that is some good advice. im pretty content with the background. it adds some consistency the shot.

[Greg McCary]

What gives this shot great impact is the expression in the eyes and the sharp focus in the feathers. Given the circumstances it was a great catch.

I would suggest some minor post processing to take out that little branch and snow directly in front of the owl and to brighten the area around the eyes a bit.

As to comments about the busy background, it is possible in post-processing to selectively defocus the bacground too, if that is what the photographer wants.

Ronnoco

I would like to see an edit Ron, that sounds interesting. If afdlips doesn't mind of course.
Greg

[afdlips]

go right ahead guys

[molaselake]

Personally, I find the cooler (blue/purple) color cast spot on. It goes right along with the wintery atmosphere. The edit looks a bit too bright and the warm tones detract from the photo. There's something about winter and snow that makes you feel enveloped, and I think this picture conveys that nicely.

[Coastal Flyer]

Took me a while to "warm" up to this shot. I can't add anything to the comments that has not already been stated but that I like it, original and Loupey's. Great capture, it really grows on you.

CF

[Ronnoco]

Well here is the edit. I gave the owl more visual attention without totally defocusing the background and took out some minor distracting branches overlapping or near the owl.

Ronnoco

[Greg McCary]

That's some very skilled PS work Ron. Looks as though you adjusted the color as well.
Greg

[Ronnoco]

That's some very skilled PS work Ron. Looks as though you adjusted the color as well.
Greg

Thanks, Greg. I am trying to refine and improve my skills and some shots are perfect for playing with.

The background is the same colour as his original back in number 1. The owl and the immediate area around it is filtered in 16 bit to give it a bit of punch and separation and to retain colour information and then transfered back to 8 bit to upload to the site.

Ronnoco

[afdlips]

Well here is the edit. I gave the owl more visual attention without totally defocusing the background and took out some minor distracting branches overlapping or near the owl.

Ronnoco

thats amazing that you could remove a branch so nondestructively. i really like what you have done

[Ronnoco]

thats amazing that you could remove a branch so nondestructively. i really like what you have done

Glad you like it. Sometimes postprocessing can just add the finishing touches to a great effective shot.

Ronnoco

[afdlips]

very true. thanks for the help!

[EOSThree]

Nice PS work Ron. I like the colder version, and I am glad you left the color temp pretty much as it was in the original, you feel the cold looking at it. I like this Ron much better, nice constructive, helpful, critique. I am now learning from you instead of being repelled by you.

[readingr]

Well here is the edit. I gave the owl more visual attention without totally defocusing the background and took out some minor distracting branches overlapping or near the owl.

Ronnoco

Ron,

That is truly amazing

Would you mind sharing what product did you use PS,PSE,PSP?

Mouse or tablet and pen?

What tools were used to clone out the twig:

Not sure I understand the conversion to 16bit v 8bit editing and how that keeps the colour.

Roger

[Ronnoco]

Ron,

That is truly amazing

Would you mind sharing what product did you use PS,PSE,PSP?

Mouse or tablet and pen?

What tools were used to clone out the twig:

Not sure I understand the conversion to 16bit v 8bit editing and how that keeps the colour.

Roger

Thanks, Roger.

I used Corel Paint Shop Pro X, the mouse and the clone tool to take out the twig in front of the owl, a distracting piece of snow on the owl and a branch sticking out of his head so-to-speak and a couple of others. The difficulty was of course working with the pattern created by the feathers and I used the mouse and the brush tool to correct some minor problems.

If you edit in 8 bit like most and then go back to the histogram you will discover that you have lost colour information and are down from for example 256 colours to perhaps 230 or fewer depending on how much editing you have done. The result of this is loss of tones, rough as opposed to smooth transition between colours and sometimes even loss of detail in highlights or shadows. Each time you save in jpeg you also compress the range of colours too.

16 bit has roughly 5 times the number of colours to start off with and there is no loss of information when you save. Therefore quality-wise, it is certainly advantageous to do as much editing as possible in 16 bit and only move to 8 bit for perhaps an edit that cannot be done in 16bit format, and the final saving for the web.

Ronnoco

[readingr]

Ron,

Thanks for the explanation - I need a load of practicing to get that good.

An off topic query. Have you found a situation that if you convert to B&W using the Channel mixer in PSP, the next time you open the image its back in colour even with the Channel Mixer in the layers. PSP version X by the way.

Roger

[Ronnoco]

Ron,

Thanks for the explanation - I need a load of practicing to get that good.

An off topic query. Have you found a situation that if you convert to B&W using the Channel mixer in PSP, the next time you open the image its back in colour even with the Channel Mixer in the layers. PSP version X by the way.

Roger

When I tried the Channel mixer and even rebooted the program, I did not find that it changed back to colour. It stayed black and white. I did however find weaknesses. The greys resulting were slightly on the warm side and pale colours were more white than a light shade of grey.

I compared with with a black and white conversion filter (16bit) on the same photo. There were more controls for adjusting the software filter and it produced better quality tones.

Ronnoco

[readingr]

Ron,

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try

Roger