Owl

Thanks to all those who helped me on my last competition entry which I won - I owe you a virtual beer

This is one of my next competition entries. I have so far done some basic tonal adjustment and lightened the eyes slightly. I don't know whether to tone the background down a little?

Comments appreciated. (competition subject is totally open).

Also I also shall be entering the one in my gallery of the woman with the red hat titled Modesty, although I can't post it in a thread for comments any thoughts would be appreciated.

Lovely, aren't owls just gorgeous?

I'd be inclined to crop a bit off the top and right side. I find my eyes being distracted by the little holes. You could put the trimmed off bit in for this week's competition! I'd also lift the eyes a wee bit more and maybe clone the catchlight in the left eye onto the right one.

lovely shot, but i would crop of the post on the right and a tad above ,

Very nice indeed. lovely bird

I love owls. Great shot, mate!

That's interesting as I'd say keep the post as it offers a boundary for the bird. If the owl were looking to the right then I might agree but in this case I'd leave the post with its nice colours and crop from the left to move the owl to a less central position.

A lovely clear shot of an owl, great colours, focus etc.

How much sharpening have you done and for my own education how dare one go with such fine detail in the feathers?

Did you import from RAW using ACR in which case did you take the default sharpening or fiddle with the settings?

Mike

Thanks for all the comments, I shall now put in some work based on them.

For Mike I used Lightroom (so same ACR engine as PS), with its standard capture sharpening settings, and didn't even take it into PS did a straight export from LR with standard sharpen for screen settings.

There is a tiny amount of depth of field which - fortunately - is centred around the owls beak.

This was taken on a GX10. I now have a Jacobs £299 special GX20 and can't wait to see the (hopefully) improved results from that.

Tim,
You should explain that since L.R.2 came out, there has been a very big improvement in the sharpening department of LR 2 compared to LR 1x.
Not only has the input sharpening been improved, but now we also have output sharpening. Provided by Pixel Genius. The makers of PhotoKit Sharpener. (arguably the best sharpening tool on the market) It wasn't free by the way. Adobe had to cash out big, for the implementation.

Martin.

Great shot of an amazing bird.
Why crop at all, imo the post makes it real in a real environment.

Clone an amazing bird like this-outrageous

I wonder why you need to "improve" on this with a better? camera.

The less he said the more he heard and the more he heard the less he said- that's wise old owls for you

Regards

Chris

Martin.

Thanks for explaining that, as I didn't really know that, but it would explain things.

I have used - often overused - Photokit Sharpener for some time in PS, as it can give that extra little bit of bite to a print or image.

Timbo

Was this shot taken in the wild ?

Regards

Chris

Chris

I cannot tell a lie - it was taken at the Mid Wales Falconry Centre - link

A great bunch of people, who really seem to care for the birds welfare.

With regards to the 'improved' camera, I'm happy with the GX10 and I produce good A3 prints from it but the GX20 came along at the right price.
(By the way the reason I have now 2 Samsung bodies rather than Pentax is purely the price differential at the time I bought them - it gives me more money for glass).