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Thread: Hawk's lunch

  1. #1
    kaneohebud's Avatar
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    Hawk's lunch

    Hawk's lunch
    I watched this guy take off from top of a tall pine. He went into the valley below the road where I was standing. I saw him grasp something and he returned to a dead tree at eye level about 15 feet from me. One of those rare chances. Field mouse wasn't too keen on it though. Hawk took it's head with the first bite.

  2. #2
    terrib's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Great catch! Nice focus and DOF. But eeuuuu. Glad my cat has prepared me for such gruesome moments!

  3. #3
    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    beautiful shot, love the DOF, clarity and the composition.

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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hello, Bud. One of those RARE opportunities one can have. The execution, IMHO, was just perfect! An image to print and hang (it even looks like a painting). A keeper!
    Last edited by Otavio; 17th April 2013 at 03:58 AM.

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    Moderator Dave Humphries's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Bud,

    Great capture, given the 'surprise' of it.

    I do think it could have been better if downsized to 1000px tall and sharpened with USM at 90%, 0.3px radius and 1 threshold, before posting though.

    Cheers,

  6. #6
    RustBeltRaw's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Agree with Dave on additional sharpening. Nice job reacting quickly enough to get this.

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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Great catch Bud. The way he's looking at you he may be thinking about desert

  8. #8
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    A marvellous photo! The colours are in perfect harmony (with just a touch of red to draw the eye!). Beautiful background. I wish it were mine!

    Tony

  9. #9
    kaneohebud's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Humphries View Post
    Hi Bud,

    Great capture, given the 'surprise' of it.

    I do think it could have been better if downsized to 1000px tall and sharpened with USM at 90%, 0.3px radius and 1 threshold, before posting though.

    Cheers,
    Thanks, Dave. I'm always learning and still have a lot to learn about USM, since I Use Aperture primarily with NIK plug-ins. I'll go back and play with it some more.

  10. #10

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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Quote Originally Posted by kaneohebud View Post
    Hawk's lunch
    I watched this guy take off from top of a tall pine. He went into the valley below the road where I was standing. I saw him grasp something and he returned to a dead tree at eye level about 15 feet from me. One of those rare chances. Field mouse wasn't too keen on it though. Hawk took it's head with the first bite.

    You were clocked, scoped and thereafter assessed in terms of a potential threat. I've noticed this with prey birds, every bloody time I photograph them, they're already eye-balling me fercrissakes!!

  11. #11
    kaneohebud's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hawk's lunch
    Dave: Thanks for the PSE lesson. That was spot on. Very happy to learn a new trick.

    Thanks everyone else for the kind comments.

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    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Dave,

    How do you know, ie; why the specifics for sharpening for downsizing?

    I would like to learn how and why.. Until most recently I never sharpened my photos after downsizing (I only learned that I should do this from this forum).. And I have been using un-sharp mask for downsizing ie 85% Radius 1, Threshold 4... which is a general recommendation that I learned from a book I recently read.

    The book advises that all photographers use un-sharp mask? Is USM 90% the same as the amount of sharpening?

    Thank you.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Humphries View Post
    Hi Bud,

    Great capture, given the 'surprise' of it.

    I do think it could have been better if downsized to 1000px tall and sharpened with USM at 90%, 0.3px radius and 1 threshold, before posting though.

    Cheers,

  13. #13
    Moderator Dave Humphries's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Christina,

    Quote Originally Posted by Christina S View Post
    How do you know, ie; why the specifics for sharpening for downsizing?
    I learnt most of what I know about sharpening from Colin - then adapted it a little for what I shoot and threw in what I know about the best sizes to display things here at CiC. This is similar to what I shoot, so the "usual rules" apply ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Christina S View Post
    I would like to learn how and why.. Until most recently I never sharpened my photos after downsizing (I only learned that I should do this from this forum).. And I have been using un-sharp mask for downsizing ie 85% Radius 1, Threshold 4... which is a general recommendation that I learned from a book I recently read.
    The down size to 1000px is so it fits the height of most viewers screens (although small/older laptop users may lose out).
    It is preferable if the downsize is at least 2:1 (after cropping) to maintain quality and reduce noise (before sharpening).

    I hope that Bud went back to the original image to downsize from, because that would give better quality result than just downsizing (again) from the 1599px height one already posted.

    How do I know what values for USM?
    Amount aim is 100%, but vary above or below dependent upon :-
    image content; lower if lots of very fine, bright detail (can look 'speckly' otherwise)
    capture type; lower if jpg.
    Radius almost always 0.3px, because 0.2 is too narrow and 0.4 begins to risk seeing halos (meaning 1px is way too wide)
    Threshold as low as possible.
    I try to process my own RAW images so that I can use a threshold of 0 or 1.
    It needs to be higher if the original was a jpg capture (e.g. 2 - 4), or if high iso and/or underexposure corrected in PP and/or severe cropping have occurred.

    Quite often I will try a guess and if I don't like the result Ctrl+Z undoes it and I have another go.

    Quote Originally Posted by Christina S View Post
    The book advises that all photographers use un-sharp mask? Is USM 90% the same as the amount of sharpening?
    To clarify; USM is UnSharp Mask (sharpening) - if that's what you're asking, but I may have 'missed the point'.

    Cheers,

  14. #14
    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Dave,

    Thank you so much for the detailed reply... Very helpful and I will use as a guideline for the next time I post photos.

    I am processing my raw photos, so great to know about the threshold

    Yes, that was what I was asking.. I did not understand the abbreviation but I do now!
    Thank you.

  15. #15
    kaneohebud's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Humphries View Post

    I hope that Bud went back to the original image to downsize from, because that would give better quality result than just downsizing (again) from the 1599px height one already posted.
    Hi again Dave: I didn't go back to the original. However, I have printed off your advice to Christina and am going back to some of my older photos to play around so I make the USM fine tuning a regular part of my workflow. You really earned your moderator pay () with your advice today. Many thanks again!

  16. #16
    Moderator Dave Humphries's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Quote Originally Posted by kaneohebud View Post
    I didn't go back to the original.
    Hah, caught you

    I was expecting the noise to be better, so lets just say I had my suspicions

    Quote Originally Posted by kaneohebud View Post
    I have printed off your advice to Christina and am going back to some of my older photos to play around so I make the USM fine tuning a regular part of my workflow.
    Yes, I thought it would help others.

    The > 2:1 downsize first is essential - and use bi-cubic, not bi-cubic sharper (because that effectively puts 1 whole pixel halos around everything).

    By the way; I rarely sharpen at all before the downsize, although I might use USM to apply Local Contrast Enhancement - not really needed on this shot because you were so close.

    Quote Originally Posted by kaneohebud View Post
    You really earned your moderator pay () with your advice today. Many thanks again!
    No worries, glad to help.

  17. #17
    kaneohebud's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hawk's lunch
    Here's another I adjusted slightly with your advice, Dave. It's a Japanese White-eye on a mango outside my window.

  18. #18
    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Dave,

    I'm sorry to cause you more work but I just realized that I am still not clear on sharpening.

    I typically sharpen my images in raw in Lightroom 4.1 or Elements 9 by 25%... I save in my picture files (windows) which automatically puts them in Picasa.. From Picasa I export to a smaller size for posting. Then I open up Elements 9 and apply an un-sharp mask for posting because my understanding is that one loses detail/quality when downsizing a photo.

    I can't apply an un-sharp mask in raw in Elements 9, and I don't think this can be done in Lightroom either. Should I be cropping my photos in Adobe raw to the appropriate size for posting? And then apply an unsharp mask on the PSD following your guidelines?

    I will read the tutorials on sharpening again but if you could clarify further I would be most appreciative.

    Thank you.

  19. #19
    Moderator Dave Humphries's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Hi Christina,

    No I don't do it at the ACR/LR stage, only later.

    I might save an unsharpened, full resolution image, then downsize, sharpen (in CS or Elements) and save separately for PBase (and here).

    If the capture is sharp enough, I actually don't bother with 'capture sharpening', or 'creative sharpening' - I find it can just make it look noisier. It does depend on the subject though, but for wildlife, I generally only do 1 sharpening, after the downsize.

    Occasionally I might try to 'rescue' a substandard capture with a multi-pass regime, but again, I'd likely do this after downsizing.

    I don't have LR, so everything gets done in ACR and CS5/6 (or Elements) and I don't use Picasa, which keeps it all simpler.

    HTH,

  20. #20
    Brownbear's Avatar
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    Re: Hawk's lunch

    Thank you for clarifying. I will try your way next time around.

    It's the only thing I use Picasa for... phasing it out gradually

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