Wolves!! (C&C)

CraggyIslander

Finally getting my head around the processing lark. Below are a couple from Haliburton wolf centre in Canada. Links go to the fullsized images on flickr and the full set can be found here

Any comments welcome, especially hints on how to improve the processing




edit: replaced the green hue version with a more tweaked one :-)

rymus

p'raps a smidge more contrast.. Looks good otherwise. Wolves and lush green grass don't work well together though, I'd have expected a more barren landscape. So, to summarise, a small increase in contrast and photoshop in a different background

Eirebear

Yep, a little more contrast and maybe desaturate the grass a little, its extremely green and quite overbearing.
Nice shots though, beautiful animals

evilhomer

Just a quick observation, is your white balance off?

And maybe a bit of selective saturation (especially on the greens).

And maybe have a look at some High-Pass sharpening?

High-Pass Sharpening tutorial.

challengemaster

maybe even B&W?

Rojo

Great photos!! Had a little mess with the first one in photoshop - hope you don't mind! :-)

challengemaster

v nice rojo

b&w (i got bored )

CraggyIslander

Thanks guys, think I'll see if I can do the selective desaturation thingie.... will post back results :-) Think I've found my mission for this evening....... conquer one PS tool a day!

evilhomer, the white balance is set to the 'cloudy' preset as with the 'as shot' or daylight the wolves themselves look really faded...... auto is worse as it gives them a purplish hue (devil wolves eh!) but grass looks perfect :rolleyes:

CraggyIslander

Hows this?



I'll try the sharpening later tonight


Yay I've learned something today

Valentia

Much better. The originals have a definite green cast.

PoleStar

Just wondering, how do you achieve selective desaturation?

(in general terms, Im using paintshop)

Thanks!

CraggyIslander

as you can see I'm a beginner in PS, but I used 'color range' from the select menu and pointed the droplet thingie to the green..... bit of twiddling with the range and had just the grass selected (or 80% of it anyway) The desature or any other action just happens on the selected bits.

Was relatively easy in this one as there's no green in the wolf itself.

CraggyIslander

After a lot of experimenting with adjusting white balance, levels, exposure (3 or 4 times) think I've finally found the setting that brings out these beauties the best on the green background.......

Ta da!!



What do yas think? Will be playing with muineach's tutorial later on, once I grasp the layers thing ;-)

edit: Also learned not to do any editing on the laptop.... the first attempt didnt look half as green on that screen, honest!!

Eirebear

That looks much better Fred, nice work

evilhomer

Eirebear wrote: »

That looks much better Fred, nice work

I agree, hopefully with a bit of practice with the high-pass filtering you can bring out the eyes and the fur a bit more.

Good work on the adjustments so far, look good.

Culann

I agree, that looks very nice (I love wolves..). When I clicked the link I only got one photo in Flickr - is that right?

CraggyIslander

Aye its only one pic at the moment, had to hide the greenish ones (dang laptop ) Hope to get em all reprocessed properly asap and also try Muineachs sharpening on some of em..... should be a set of 8-10 again by thursday :-)

CraggyIslander

Sets been updated :-) Still need to do Muineach sharpening... which one to try it on first...... I was thinking this one:



Full set here

challengemaster

I wonder if you'd mind if I hang onto my B&W version (as a desktop for my laptop, i love it )

CraggyIslander

sure thing challengemaster

challengemaster

danke

Muineach

for some reason I missed this thread
well I took a quick look, here's my effort.
I concentrated on the wolf rather than the background, high pass sharpening at 2px - around the head, blending in along the back with a mask and 4px - just over the eyes,brow and front of the nose with the layer set to soft light and opacity set to 42%.
Then a bit of saturation change, and dodge/burn on the nose(left side darker) and I just gave it a slight run over to emphasize the muscles in legs & the way the run into the back. I can send you the psd file if you want ?

CraggyIslander

wow thanks Muineach, he's almost as beautiful as in the flesh :-)

I'll pm you my email addy