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Actual Image

(11585)

Cape Gull
Larus vetula

This is the first of hopefully more RAW workshops I have posted. Because it’s a RAW workshop I will not spend time on a fact sheet of the bird but rather try to describe what I did in the RAW conversion process and Photoshop editing thereafter.

I hope you understand what I did and any questions regarding this procedure are most welcome.

Step 1 – RAW conversion.
Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS2 RAW converter.

I use the Adobe Bridge (file manager) to catalogue and preview most of my work. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

RAW settings:
Custom white balance with a temperature of 5500K
Exposure compensation: +1.1
Shadows (fill flash): Manual 3 (5 = as shot)
Brightness: Auto 35 (50 = as shot)
Contrast: Auto 44 (25 = as shot)
Saturation: 0 (as shot)
Sharpness: 0 (as shot)
Luminance smoothing: 0 (as shot)
Color noise reduction: 0 (as shot) – Would anyone care to explain this setting to me?
Chromatic aberration: 0 (as shot)
Vignetting: 0 (as shot)
Cropped: 3x2 aspect ratio to get less of the foreground than a 4x3 aspect ratio would have given me.

Step 2 – Photoshop CS 2 work
Brightness: Selected the highlights (because of overexposed areas) and adjusted the brightness to -10 for the selection.
Shadows: Tried to get some detail out of the darker areas and adjusted the shadows on the selection to Amount: +5, Tone 50%, Radius 30
Color balance: Because of the “flat light” as a result of the overcast weather I adjusted the middle toned levels Red +20.
Channel mixer: The light still looked “flat” and grey. So I selected the sky and used the channel mixer selected the blue range and adjusted the blue level to 106%
Resized: 800x533x72 for screen resolution.
Sharpened: Smart sharpen 100,6 gaussian blur. I just read that lens blur is a better method as Gaussian blurring works similar to USM. Will try it out later.
Colors: I used the “Provia action” to make the colors “pop”
Clone tool: I removed the dark blotch in front of the birds beak.

I hope my explanation makes this clear enough for you to understand. Any feedback would be most appreciated and if you would like to get your hands on the RAW file to give it a go please let me know and I will supply the download link. After you have edited in your own fashion please post it as WS to this post. I have posted the original “as shot” photo to the WS for your perusal.

I deliberately chose a very difficult file shot in bad weather and light to see what could be corrected in RAW. I still think the final version I posted in not very good but it has a nice pose. :)

Altered Image #6

gerhardt

(11585)
RAW conversion
Edited by:AdrianW

(710)

ACR 3.2

Adjust
WB: As shot

Exposure: +1.2
Shadows: 2
Brightness: Auto
Contrast: Auto
Saturation: +59

Detail
Sharpness: 50
Luma Smoothing: 0
Color NR: 15

Lens
CA Red/Cyan: +6
CA Blue/Yell: -32

Curve
Tone Curve: Strong Contrast

PS CS2

Image size 25% Bicubic Sharper
Smart Sharpen: 25%, 8.7px.

New Layer

Smart Sharpen: 50%, 0.8px

Knocked out the edges with a soft edged eraser to prevent haloes

Flattened

New Layer

Curves to heavily accentuate low end and thus bring out eye detail

Eraser to all except the eye.

Flattened

> 8bit

Save For Web

Altered Image #5

gerhardt

(11585)
RAW photo
Edited by:hummingbird24

(64)

Well, you said it wasn't going to be easy, and you were right, Gerhard.

I have been around this thing several times today, and this is the one I came up with.

Now that I have seen the rest, I should delete it, however, that would be counterproductive, so here it is.

Adjusted White Balance to As Shot.

Converted to PhotoShop CS, then cropped and adjusted levels slightly. Cloned out area around lower beak.

Used polygonal lasso tool on eye, and highlighted it.

Put through shadows/highlights to try and bring out more of the feather details in the darker areas: Amount 25%, Tonal Width 24%, oops, forgot the radius...

Created a duplicate layer, a high pass filter of a radius of 10 pixels, then layer style, to soft light at 85%. Then flattened layers.

Did USM, then sharpened once more.

Used blur tool at 100% to clean around the bird to chest area and across below tail.

Then ran through Neat Image to filter and sharpen slightly again.

I think that is it. Now I will read all of yours and cry... just kidding.

At least at this stage you will know that I am in desperate need of tutelage, thank you for this wonderful idea!

Anna-Lu

Altered Image #4

gerhardt

(11585)
PDP
Edited by:PDP

(11769)

Hi Gerhard, here's what I have done.

Capture One LE 3.7.1 on RAW image

Exposure compensation + 0.5
Contrast compensation + 13
Colour saturation 20%

Curves
Locked the midtones, and adjusted until I was happy with it.

Colour balance 5850 K

Warmed a little

Sharpness +118
Threshold 0

Colour noise suppression 0
Banding suppresion 0

Converted to TIFF

Photoshop Elements 3.0

Cropped
Resized
Darkened Highlights 27%
Lightened Shadows 12%

Neat Image filter
all standard settings except pre loaded filter "Remove only half the noise"

USM 150%, 0.3r, 0 Threshold

cloned out some debris.

Added frame and text

Converted to jpg and saved at around 140 kB

That's it, I hope you like it.

Altered Image #3

gerhardt

(11585)
DPP software & Elements 3
Edited by:marhowie

(302)

Uploaded raw file from your link. I cropped & flipped the image putting the subject back in the frame a bit. Highlight adjust elements 3 < 25% & shadow very little. Intellisharpen II @ amount 80 with NR checked. Resized to the 200K TN limit. Finally, USM @ amount 100 & .3 pixel radius for viewing. There is some grain apparent in the darker feathers. Unavoidable with significant highlight reduction.
Howard

Altered Image #2

gerhardt

(11585)
Gerts version
Edited by:ellis49

(30807)

Hi Gerhard.
Open it in Adobe-bridge.
Pressed CTRL+U to turn out the auto selection from adobe.
Use the crop tool in custom. Use the pipette for WB, point at the whites part, 5150K.
Set exposure to + 0.6, Set sharpen to 0, leave the rest of the parameters.
Colour space; adobe RGB, 16 bit/channel, resolution 240.

In PS CS2.
First sharpen with Nik sharpener PRO2, pre-sharpen raw 40%.
Use Threshold under the Layer-menu (You got a new layer) to find out the whitest and blackest point. Mark them with the tool; colour sample tool. Delete the threshold layer.
Open curves in the layer-palette, use the white and black pipette and click in the markings.
Remove the markings by clicking clear.
Now the picture should be correct exposure and right colour.
Ctrl+shift+e the make one layer.
Use the shadows/highlight tool the get the wings a little more light for details.
15 % amount shadow and 5 % amount midtune contrast for some more punch.
Resize the picture to 794/480/ 72. Select canvas; add 6 pixels with black to get
a frame outside the picture. Now it’s 800/486.
Convert to lab-colour, use USM 0,3 % pixels, 300% amount in the lightness channel.
Convert back to abobe RGB. Set 8 bit/ channel convert to sRGB for the WEB and save it as JPG.
It’s not so colourful as yours but I think it has some more details in the wings.
And I did not clone out the black thing infront of the beak because I almost never clone away things in my own pictures.

Regards
Gert

Altered Image #1

gerhardt

(11585)
Original unedited version
Edited by:gerhardt

(11585)

This is the original unedited version. Converted from RAW with no adjustments and resized in PS CS2 with no other adjustments.

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