[BELLERBY]

I shot this little lady whilst in Tasmania last week. Technically, I'm delightd with the shot.. the right bits are sharp. The composition is good, and the expression cracks me up whenever I see it, BUT.

It's just a bit........... dull. don't you think? How would one get a bit more life in this? Either pre or post? Would it be a custom setting that I create in the camera for when the colours are not that impressive, or maybe some post processing?

Or maybe I just have to accept that its a brown wallaby on a brown and black background.. and that's the end of it?

What do you think?

[Keith Alan]

Well, it looks a little underexposed so maybe shooting it a little hotter or cranking up the exposure in post would help.
The colors are very neutral, so more saturation isn't an answer in my opinion.

One thing that would make a big difference is catchlights in the eyes.

A little fill-flash probably would have brought out your subjects more, added catchlights, and kept the background where it is so the critters 'pop' nicely.
If done right, the flash would only be contributing a little bit, and wouldn't have that 'snapshot' look even using the on-camera flash.
Add a diffuser of some sort to your pop-up flash and it would have made a world of difference.

[Irma]

I agree with Keith about the flash, but with this one I think you still have some possibilities.

In post processing I worked with curves to bring light, selective color working the reds and yellows, color balance to make the bg a bit cold and masking roughly the subject, select the green bush in the bg with the laso feather 20 and work the greens again with selective color at the end brightness and contrast.



Your picture is very sweet btw...

I don't remember the exact color of the Kangaroos, so my color can be a bit different from what you saw. Anyway the selective color magenta and yellow in the yellows can give you the right color in the subject.

Also I have to say I had a little problem with my monitor yesterday. I hope my picture has the right contrast...

[Keith Alan]

Looks fine, Irma.

[Irma]

Thanks Keith...

[ADK_Jim]

Here's my take on it. I started with a 'defog' by applying USM at 15%/60 radius/0 threshold. That gives you better tonal separation and intensifies the saturation just a bit without altering the actual hue. Next I brought the white point back in a curves layer (you could do it in levels as well) because there was a lot of space on the right of where the histogram hit the base line. Then I used a Brightness contrast layer to deaden the background, painting the Roo back in on the layer mask. Any time you shoot animals or people, the eyes are the key. You got them sharp but unfortunately the whole area around them is dark and there is no catch light. the eyes just blend in. I thought it would look phony to put in a catch light that wasn't there so the only other option is to brighten the lower lid and increase the contrast in the eyelashes to make the eyes stand out more. I used the dodge tool at 5% to brighten highlights and the burn tool at 8% to darken darks. Repeated passes result in subtle and very controlled sharpening of just the areas you want. The point is to not push it too far so that it looks unreal. Here's the result.


Edit: The image appeared a bit darker on the forum so I adjusted the mid point to make it a bit brighter

Second thoughts: It bothered me a bit that the shot was angled. Diagonal lines add movement and shooting on an angle can work great to emphasize movement in a subject but when the subject is clearly static it just makes it appear off-balance so I tried straightening the image. Of necessity that cropped the image. The other second thoughts were on the catch light idea. By making them no brighter than the lower eye lid they don't look phony (pure white would I think). I didn't add one to the baby's eye since it would be under the eyelash at this angle.

[Irma]

Comparing my kangaroo with yours, mine looks very red, Jim. I like your post processing. It looks more natural.
I also did something with the light in the eye, only dodged a bit what I had in the eye already, but not birght enough.

[NT73]

I'm just reading and learning.

[BELLERBY]

I'm just reading and learning.

LOL, me too... this is amazing!

[ADK_Jim]

No, it's not amazing, it's Photoshop.

[matthew]

I'm a little late to the party, but this is more fun than working, so I thought I'd give it a try. I've borrowed Jim's catchlight idea, and done an Orton effect to make it a little different.

[BELLERBY]

No, it's not amazing, it's Photoshop.

I meant the feedback, not Photoshop. I use p shop everyday.. I know how capable it is.

Thanks everyone. This has given me some insights. When my new camera arrives next week, I will be trying some camera settings first pre shot to minimise post processing, as I have ssen some review on the Net already and it seems to handle colour exellently. And then when I need to I will be trying out some of these helpful hints. Except I will try and find how to do them in Lightroom instead, to keep my workflow less complicated.

Jim, what you did made a particularyly big difference. Thanks again.

[ADK_Jim]

You're welcome. I like playing with images after shooting almost as much as shooting.