which processing?

two slightly differnt versions of same pic. C+C please.

1)
[IMG]http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b195/radicalwood/animals/chicks2copy.jpg[/IMG]

2)
[IMG]http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b195/radicalwood/animals/chicks2acopy.jpg[/IMG]

Cheers Neil

You cant decide what kind of color shade to choose ?
Maybe second for me.
If you cant see (understand) the source of light its better to stick to the more natural ?
Thats only my opinion. And my screen is not calibrated.

Neither looks right to me. I expect the reason the one owl looks quizzical is that he's wondering why you weren't using a grey card

Mike

I'm with Mike.
The second is better as far as color, but has been oversharpened I think.

cheers guys, I do perfer the second one colour wise and also think that I overdid the sharpening on the second one. First one just had a levels change but no colour adjustment.

Mike, gray card, gray card!! I was holding off my 2 year old with one hand shooting hand held with the other, the owl just refused to hold it up

I must try and get some time to learn the processing better.

I fear the shot was lost in the first place, just too dark. 1/8th & iso800 wasn't going to give much detail. I'd have wanted a tripod at that speed, not a toddler to juggle. The fact you got anything resembling an owl shows testament to the shake reduction system.

With regards to white balnce, it's best to try & get it right when shooting as it gives a better exposure, but if you shoot Raw you can fine tune it when processing.

RR shake reduction works well, in the other shots its hard to tell what i was pointing at. never tryed shooting Raw, I think the time to convert would be the porblem, but must give it a try. taking the shots and getting comments is the best way to learn and improve.