Great White Egret and Friend

[John 2]

Three more for a potential triptych which I have added at the end. Comments valued and welcome.

All Nikon D7100 and Tamron 150 - 600mm lens.

1.


2.


3.


4.

[Otavio]

Great work! I am clapping my hands to you, John. Your treatment gave them an oil painting look. Would you mind sharing the tools/effects used during post processing?

Again, very beautiful images. Well done!

[Suzan J]

I viewed the grouping in lightbox, and I agree with Otavio that these beautiful images have a lovely soft painted quality. They would look great on my wall. Would it be possible to put just a tiny smidgen of space between the little fellow's beak and the big guy's foot?

[Brownbear]

Hi John,

Beautiful images, all! Gorgeous captures. The 3rd is my favourite because of the two birds in such close proximity with reflections (special composition) and the 1st for the moment. (and tack sharp focus on the Egret's eye)

In the 1st image I think I see some banding in the upper half. In the 2nd image I thought I saw some dust spots in the upper half but I think they are just little specs of stuff in the water. Perhaps if the upper portion was the same lightness of the 3rd image? I think I see a dust bunny in the 3rd image, in the upper left hand corner. Sorry to be the dust bunny person.

[Mike Buckley]

These are so artistic. I agree with Suzan regarding #3 about the possibility of putting at least the tiniest amount of space between the beak of the bird on the left and the legs of the bird on the right.

[Bobobird]

Excellent treatment of 3 fine images. I too would like to hear about the pp treatment.

[Teton Chuck]

I like them all, but I am partial to number one. The eye is sharp and the yellow reflected in the water is beautiful. Too bad you couldn't get the eyes that sharp in number 3.

[John 2]

Thanks for the comments all.

Christina, there are definitely bits in the water - lots of them. I tried to use them to add some feeling of depth by progressively removing them through into the BG but as the saying goes, if they look like dust bunnies............. So they are now removed. The banding is also there but nothing like as prominent on my monitor. Well spotted and also removed. Incidentally, for info, I would normally use the Median filter selectively in PS to hide banding but I discovered quite by accident that selecting the area and reducing the Structure setting in Nik Veviza is as effective if not more so.

Susan, Mike, Chuck, the value of comments is that fresh eyes see what you don't. Couldn't do a great deal about the eye sharpness but I have added a highlight in the eye of the smaller bird. I have also disconnected its beak from the Egret's feet. Definite improvement IMHO. See below.

As to processing (Otavio, Bobbo), for the most part, I used a technique that is similar to that used in high key portraiture. Fortunately, shooting into the light meant that the water was already almost colourless. I stretched the dynamic range using Un-Sharp Mask in PS but reversing the Amount and Radius sliders (low amount and high radius) plus adding a bit of brightness. This lifts the highlights without burning them out but also leaves the shadows fairly grey. To recover shadow detail, I layered on a mono version of the image to which I had applied the Stylise/Find edges filter and an extreme S curve to produce an almost line drawing effect, merging it using the Soft Light option and then adjusted the opacity to get the effect I wanted. This also produces the arty effect. Finally I added a bit of micro contrast to the birds using Nik Veviza, dodged, burned, cloned, sharpened etc. where needed and added the negative vignette. Sounds complicated but uses up a rainy afternoon.

[mugge]

John, you have thought a great deal about this. You have spent a rainy afternoon producing a great 'arty' image. I am impessed.
Ole

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[IzzieK]

John...I cannot add anymore to what had already been said apart from saying this is one of your best work. I love all of them apart from #3 but you've improved that with editing the eyes of the little birdie and the little separation of the beak from the leg of the white egret. Job well done. I just re-installed Nik in my desktop yesterday, hopefully I won't have to go through reformating the whole drive again soon.

[dje]

Very tastefully executed John, lovely work.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

It's amazing to see how such a small change as the two changes made in the small bird so wonderfully improve an image.

[bnnrcn]

Great work John, congrats

[marlunn]

really really impressive, not only the initial images but the pp is so well done. A real pleasure to view

[vaez]

I like them all my pick would also 3

[Brownbear]

They all look great. Indeed the the placement of the beak and the sparkle in the eye make the image extra special.

Thank you for sharing about banding using Photoshop (Median filter) to hide banding. I've encountered it in some of my low light images on water and sky and I didn't know that one could fix it.

Once again, gorgeous images and truly inspiring artistry!

[John 2]

Thanks all for the additional comments.

Mike, as I'm sure you know, very often, it's paying attention to the detail that counts but you don't always see at first.

Your welcome Christina. As many have said, that's what this forum is all about. Be sure to make a soft (well feathered)selection and make certain the feathering doesn't cause you to overlap any of the rest of the image. It is sometimes a good idea to use a quick mask or even apply the Median adjustment to a copy layer so that you can cut through to the original using the eraser if the median filter spreads too far.