Mourning Dove

[Tom Hook]

I am putting this in critique because I am using a new camera (810) and new software (Iridient because I use a Mac). I have used CNX2 for years but can no longer easily do so with the 810, hence Iridient. I took this picture this afternoon. Any adjustments I made here were very minor but the final result seems a bit washed out to me, but I could be overthinking this. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

[David H. Hartman]

If it looks washed out to you I'd use LCH (Lightness, Chroma, Hugh). I'd use a very soft "S" curve in Master Lightness to boost the mid tone contrast followed possibly with a very light touch in Chroma. I'd be very understated in this as the photograph looks quit natural to me.

Dave Hartman

[Akira]

I have seen such a clean dove for the first time in a long time, because the doves seen in Tokyo are very dirty due to the air pollution.  Thanks for reminding me that a dove is a beautiful bird.

The image may look a bit flat, but the dove stands out fairly well thanks to the shallow DOF.

[Tom Hook]

Thanks Dave and Akira for commenting. I thought the image was washed out because I can't get the look I had learned to conjure up with CNX2 and hoped someone would have some ideas that would make sense to me. Perhaps I will just experiment more to find something that satisfies me.

Dave, I assume you are recommending some function in Photoshop but it is not clear to me what you are suggesting. I don't know the program well and have avoided it for the most part. At some point, I should take the plunge. However, it is forbidding to me, like learning a new language.

Akira, doves in urban areas in the US are for the most part nasty, dirty birds, and we call them pigeons although birdwatchers are more charitable and call them Rock Doves. This species is a bit more refined choosing to live in the exurbs and live on a more palatable diet. 

 

[pluton]

Viewing on a 27" NEC monitor through Safari, it looks fine; Very realistic color and contrast...it appears to have been shot in diffuse light, so overcranking the contrast/local contrast would be very evident.  The sharpening looks just a touch overcooked or crusty around the details of the dove's head.
Cool pose...those birds move fast!

[David H. Hartman]

Viewing on a 27" NEC monitor through Safari, it looks fine; Very realistic color and contrast...

I like it as is on my Win7 box. I think it's fine, contrast and saturation. I'm using Firefox 50.0. Now as to sharpening something to watch is sometimes a forum's software sharpens an image that was sharpened with care so the sharpening would not be obvious. The fix is to under sharpen the image for that Forum so the combined sharpening, your and the forum's, will be OK.

When I'm finished with an image in Photoshop I frequently have not sharpened the image. I dup the Photoshop file as a flat file (no layers) then duplicate the base or background layer and name it "Sharp." I'll do my sharpening on that layer so I can fade it out with the opacity slider. This allows me to tailor the sharpening to the forum software.

Dave

[David H. Hartman]

Dave, I assume you are recommending some function in Photoshop but it is not clear to me what you are suggesting.

LCH is a feature in Nikon's CaptureNX2 and CaptureNX-D and I assume many other photo editing programs. My version of Photoshop does not have LCH but one can get the same effect as Master Lightness by using PS Curves and setting the blending to "Luminosity only." When curves is used with Normal blending it pumps the saturation like Velvia.

Dave

[Akira]

Akira, doves in urban areas in the US are for the most part nasty, dirty birds, and we call them pigeons although birdwatchers are more charitable and call them Rock Doves. This species is a bit more refined choosing to live in the exurbs and live on a more palatable diet. 

Tom, thanks for the explanation.  The same goes with the pigeons in Tokyo.  Doves should be more like those sang in "Blowin' in the wind" by Bob Dylan...

[Tom Hook]

Thanks Keith for your response and David for your additional comments.

Keith, I have attached the original untouched and it reflects your comment about sharpening. When I used CNX2, the last thing I would do after resizing the image for web use or email, was apply whatever sharpening was needed. With Iridient, I’m sure that option exists but I haven’t discovered how to use it. Thus I had to sharpen before downsizing resulting in the overcooking. I too have an NEC monitor which did indicate what you saw but I was too preoccupied with the light and color issues to properly notice. I will investigate.

David, I have seen what you mentioned in CNX2 but having only used it a couple of times, I had forgotten about it. I regret losing the use of CNX2 and find CNX-D so painfully slow that I have put it aside until I have a computer engine that can drive that program faster. My workflow had always been to adjust the light with d-lighting and/or contrast and brightening and then play around with the color via saturation. Maybe a color point or two and that was it. Pretty rudimentary I know.

[David H. Hartman]

The more delicate tones of the first version suits the bird better. I'm looking at the photo on my primary desktop computer.

Dave

[Andrea B.]

Tom, after a basic conversion in Iridient, perform a Save As TIF. Then open the TIF in NX2 and finish your edits as in the past. I've been doing this because I can't bear to give up CNX2 just yet because it makes so many edits so easy because of the edit brush and the color points.

In Iridient, the sharpening is found under the Detail tab. Check the Enable Sharpening box and choose from the dropdown menu. There are many choices and settings are quite "sophisticated". Probably start with the Hybrid Sharpen?? I've never learned the sharpening nuances on Iridient, but should probably do so. 

Do you (or anyone else) know of any Iridient tutorials or books??
 
The M. Dove doesn't look particularly washed out to me, but I could see using some local detail enhancement to bring out the feather structure. What do you think?

EDIT: I had to remove a sample feather enhancement. It wouldn't display properly. Sorry 'bout that.

[Tom Hook]

Andrea,

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. I am aware of the conversion to tif option and while unwieldily, it would work. However, that point is moot for me as I can no longer open CNX2 on my iMac because I was stupid enough to uninstall it in hopes of installing an earlier version to take advantage of a hack that would accommodate the 810. Now all I get is "cannot install" because my computer is not using system 10.7 or later when in fact I am using 10.12.1. I had saved all the old versions of CNX2 and none works. I do have CNX2 on my laptop but that turns the whole process of using the program into a solution that would put Rube Goldberg to shame.

So, no CNX2, to my great dismay. 

I know about Irdient's detail tabbed sharpening options but it requires that you do the task prior to downsizing, which is just the opposite of what I want to do. Perhaps I can skip the detail tab, downsize, save and then go back to detail and do the sharpening. Then convert to jpeg. We'll see if that works (it seems that Rube Goldberg is rearing is ugly ahead again - Kilroy was here!).

Your suggestion about the detail enhancement is a good one, but first things first I'm afraid. I first have to figure out the process that works. It will happen but for me such things happen at a glacial pace.

As for Iridient tutorials, I think there are some on the Iridient website (and maybe on You Tube as well). However, being someone who suffers from ADD, learning via the web can make my teeth grind. By the way, how do you like Iridient?

Tom

PS The good news is the 810 seems to be a terrific camera. The biggest bonus is the dramatically enhanced Live View. For that alone, the upgrade of my four year D800 was worth it.

[David H. Hartman]

Tom,

Do you own Photoshop or even possibly PS Elements? You might do the sharpening there.

I develop on CaptureNX-D and finish in Photoshop CS2. I do most of my processing on Windows 7 but I have CaptureNX-D running on my older 24" iMAC running OS X 10.11.6. CNX-D runs on that MAC but it's deathly slow as it's two cores. The Windows 7 box is 4 cores.

CNX-D will send a tiff to PS and save it in a folder you specify. If you don't want those TIF(s) it's easy to delete them every few days.

Hope something here helps,

Dave Hartman

[Andrea B.]

Tom, are you saying CNX2 was working under OS 10.12 (Sierra) before you un-installed it??

The 810 is awesome and its Live View is so good that I have become spoiled for life. I tried an AR7 but it's Live View does not compare well at all even with the zebras and peaking.
Woops, I repeated myself below.

[Andrea B.]

"Perhaps I can skip the detail tab, downsize, save and then go back to detail and do the sharpening. Then convert to jpeg."

I dunno, but I don't think it is really too much of a disruption to workflow to convert, sharpen and Save As TIF (the 'master copy'). Then undo sharpening, downsize, resharpen and Save As JPG (the 'web copy'). I've done this for years and have become comfortable with it. Does Iridient force you to perform a close and reopen in order to do this? Photo Ninja does not.

The 810's Live View is impressive indeed. It has spoiled me for life I think. I tried an AR7, but even with "zebras & peakies" its Live View is much less useable. Zebras & peakies almost seem to get in the way.

I'm currently trying a D500 for bird photos (with the newest Nikon 200-500VR). The problem with making bird photos is that one has to get close to the darned bird. This has never been easy, has it?