Barn owl on a stick <before/after>

V-Spec · 2 Apr 2008 at 22:39

I snapped this guy in norfolk a few weeks back, despite him being there for a while I still managed to make a mess of it and ended up badly underexposing it, i've done a lot to it in PS.

Before:

After:

Wouldn't mind a bit of C&C on the processing, to claw back the exposure I did the following..

Lightroom:
Exposure +0.76
Adjustment to highlights, lights darks and shadows.
Noise reduction 30/30, even though was shot at ISO100, the adjustment to the levels seemed to create colour noise in the shadows.. maybe its my methods?

Photoshop:
Curves,
Saturation,
Colour balance +2 red
warming filter 5%
Rotation
Crop
Sharpen 100/1/0, fade 30% on the luminance.

Irish_Tom · 2 Apr 2008 at 22:54

Sure is a lot better mate, really like the processing. Great capture too mate, might have got the exposure wrong but the composition is spot on.

Panzer

doofer · 2 Apr 2008 at 22:56

I think you've wasted your time, the first looks great, very 'twilighty' and as it's an Owl for a subject it looks very natural and works really well for me, processed shot does not have anywhere near the same atmosphere

ElDude · 2 Apr 2008 at 23:42

I'm quite surprised how much detail was still there. Quite nifty that

33L · 3 Apr 2008 at 08:24

the detail is still there even though it was under exposed a bit. I have recovered a similar mistake with pretty much the same process.

I really like the re clawed picture again a nice pic from you v-spec

V-Spec · 3 Apr 2008 at 11:02

doofer said:
I think you've wasted your time, the first looks great, very 'twilighty' and as it's an Owl for a subject it looks very natural and works really well for me, processed shot does not have anywhere near the same atmosphere

lol

I know what you mean, trouble is because I screwed the shot up I can't help thinking back to how it looked in the viewfinder, and hence trying to claw it back afterwards even though I did like the spooky darkness of the original..