Got me a goose ... and a gull

[WifeKidsandDog]

It was so grey out today it was hard to take photos but I like to go out everyday and practice -- I'm becoming addicted to getting birds in flight.

Cheryl

[WifeKidsandDog]

[riverrat56]

Those geese dumping in are aweasome, good work man.

[Steve Foss]

Uh, make that ma'am, not man.

[Tom Wilson]

Very Nice Cheryl--Very Nice!

That Prime glass is doing you right.

Great Job!

My opinion--Sharpen that first goose shot just a tad, give it a little boost in saturation, and if its a crop, give it just a hair more room to the right, and that photo rocks...

[WifeKidsandDog]

Tom, do you have a tried and true method of sharpening? I don't like to sharpen very much, and so I'm more "less is more" but I find I still often end up with white jaggies around images.

Any tips much appreciated.

Thanks

Cheryl

[Tom Wilson]

Cheryl,

Sharpening is as much a guessing game as anything else that you do to a digital file. Each photo is different. There is no tried and true method or magic button that fixes or sharpens or saturates any one image. This image falls right on the verge of what can and can't be sharpened. I have made a couple of adjustments to your photo that I think make it pop, but it wasn't just sharpening. It was color balance, saturation, contrast, USM, resizing, and conversion to jpeg. (By the way never save you're images as BMP's. Bitmaps haven't been used since the original Window's paint programs.) Always save you're photos at least as jpeg's. My first question to you would be--what kind of software do you currently have. If you have a decent software, then I suggest a good book on how to use it. There are many out there. One of the best FREE programs you can get is Paint Shop Pro 8 from jasc. That's what I used for this conversion. anyways... I've gotta go to work, but take a look at this and see if you like it, then check out PSP8 and download it for free from their HSOforum. Also, if you have any specific questions feel free, and I will do my best to help you learn--you obviously have the right eye for the birds, you just need to improve on you're techniques, and you're tools.

Tom W

[WifeKidsandDog]

WOW, that's stunning! THANK YOU!

My image wasn't a bitmap however, I think that's something Internet Explorer does from time to time, makes you save as a bmp. I have no idea why.

I love the goose -- I have a lot of Photoshopping to learn. That's the program I have.

Cheryl

[hobbydog]

I use Nikon capture which came with my D70? It is very easy to use and you can download the demo version for free. http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/software/capture4/

This is what I came up with in about 60 seconds.

As Tom said there is no hard and fast rules and what may look good to me looks to harsh for someone else. Then there is your monitor.....what the pic looks like on my Sony laptop, 21 trinitron monitor or 20" HP flat panel at work are all a bit different. My biggest problem is that I am an engineer by trade and do not have much right brain artistic talent. I will do several different edits on a pic, put them all side by side and often I still do not know which one captures it best. Some pics are much easier than others to sharpen. As in most photography, light is the key.

In the pic above I used Nikon capture. The Unsharp mask settings were....

intensity = 17

halo = 7

threshold = 0

Color booster was set to nature and a level of 14

On the color balance tab I set brightness to -4 and contrast to +8

That's it.

Photoshop is nice if you want to get fancy and do things like just select the black and the sharpen it separately

[hobbydog]

Here is another version with more agressive settings.

intensity = 16

halo = 11

threshold = 0

Color booster = nature and 59

color balance = -2 brightness and +8 contrast ......and boost the red to +11 to give the goose some color.

There are endless possibilities....

[WifeKidsandDog]

HobbyDog,

Those look very nice too -- I do like the second one best. I think the more saturated looks works for the birds here. It is amazing how many different "looks" you can apply to images.

I don't tend to have as many problems with my portraits and other stuff -- just the nature-y type shots.

Thanks for the tips and advice. I appreciate it.

Here's another version I came up with today.

[Tom Wilson]

There you go Cheryl, Much Nicer!!

Good Job.

Tom W

[WifeKidsandDog]

Thanks, Tom.

Took your advice ;-)

Cheryl