Critique - Duck Photo

[dwrose]

I shot the photo of the duck several months ago and decided to see what I could do with it. The top is the original. The second one is with blur layer added and multiplied. I didn't like the shadow that was mid-body so I cropped the image for the third photo.

Can anyone give me some pointers?

Please play with the image in any manner. I'm learning so everything helps.

[riteflyt]

I hope ypu dont mind but I played with your duck a little, let me know if this is more what you were looking for?

[boxofrocks]

I never saw a duck with bedhead before.

[Duffy Pratt]

Here's a quick try:

Created a new layer, selected luminosity blend. Then applied green channel to the layer on normal. Then blue channel on soft light at 70%. Converted to LAB, adjusted shadow/highlights a little, played with curves to increase contrast on the duck, and to bring up the background some, steepened the slope on the A curve a bit, and a little less on the B curve. Sharpened luminosity channel at 200, 1.1, 3, and then converted back to sRGB. Took about 2.5 minutes.

Duffy

[dwrose]

Originally Posted by riteflyt

I hope ypu dont mind but I played with your duck a little, let me know if this is more what you were looking for?

Norm,

Would care to enlighten me on how you produced the image?

[dwrose]

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

Here's a quick try:

Created a new layer, selected luminosity blend. Then applied green channel to the layer on normal. Then blue channel on soft light at 70%. Converted to LAB, adjusted shadow/highlights a little, played with curves to increase contrast on the duck, and to bring up the background some, steepened the slope on the A curve a bit, and a little less on the B curve. Sharpened luminosity channel at 200, 1.1, 3, and then converted back to sRGB. Took about 2.5 minutes.

Duffy

Duffy,

Thanks for input. I'm not sure if I can do what you did in Elements 4, but I'm going to try.

[Duffy Pratt]

You should be able to do most of it in Elements. Does Elements 4 support curves? If not, you need to get the plug-in for it.

The shadow/highlights adjustment and the sharpening should be done on the luminosity layer. This will yield about the same results as doing them on the L channel in LAB, with some slight difference in bright highlights and deep shadows.

The steepening of the AB curves in LAB can't be done in Elements. I think the closest you can come is by playing with saturation. On this picture, it looks to me like you would want to adjust the warmer colors more, to try to bring out the foot of the duck, and to increase the color separation in the background. I don't mess with saturation anymore. I do much better making color adjustments either with curves in RGB or with LAB.

Duffy

[dwrose]

Here's what I've turned up with. What do you think about this one?

[Duffy Pratt]

I like it much better than your original. It has less noise than my correction, but also slightly less detail. Your crop works for me. The only thing I would try to improve, if I were you, is the detailing on the feathers. My version may be a bit harsh that way, but yours seems a bit soft for me. It may just be a matter of sharpening.

Duffy