Double Trouble

[Gabriela Plesea]

Another experiment, image taken recently while on a day trip with our dear friend Carl Walker, this is full frame and I decided to go for a B/W. Critique and comments much appreciated...

Nikon D4
Nikon 300mm F2.8
F8
ISO2000
1/500s

Kind regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela , this is wow on the first look . Very nice processed and converted to B/W.You got lucky on your shooting with Carl.
Nice detail and colors .............. sorry tones :bg3:.

Sharpening looks good ,but i would give a general suggestion , by not knowing how you sharpen the final output .I told you that already in the past , split the final sharpening layer into darken and lighten (blend modes ) and reduce opacity of the lighten layer by 50% and see how that looks .
I personally find all the time the light halos more distracting and making the image looking crunchy than the dark halos.

Not a fan of a vignette in general so i would reduce the vignette and try to make it less obvious .

Cheers Andreas

[keith mitchell]

Hi Gabriela ,don't think I can add to Andreas comment, but this looks a bit of clever work that looks excellent.

Cheers Keith.

[Giovanni Frescura]

For me the idea about b/n is very ok; I love bn for wildlife

[Neil Burton]

Cannot comment on the sharpening as it looks fine to me, no halos or overdone areas. I am sure the vignette is what you were after in a greetings card type of way and for such a purpose fits perfectly.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gabriela - You already know that I love this one. Nice tones and conversion. Sharpening looks ok to me too. Just would prefer a tiny bit more room on the lhs but know this is ff and you don't have it.

TFS,
Rachel

[Carl Walker]

Yeah stunning image and now that you explained how you did it today I would like to try on some of mine. Really well done Gabriela:w3

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dearest Friends,

Just a general reply and I hope this explains my experiment - I include a jpeg version of the original, as taken.

I did try a black vignette at first but was not happy with it. Yet no vignette whatsoever in my OP, what I did was to first convert into B/W in LR and do basic adjustments, then added contrast selectively in CS6, only to the lions face and ignoring the feet etc. I did create the illusion of a vignette and I kind of liked it, also liked that almost harsh and contrasty look as it made me think of a charcoal drawing. Yes it might be over sharpened and I will work on this, looking forward to Andreas' arrival (I will cook you an unforgettable dinner if you give me a 30 minutes lesson in sharpening:w3, do we have a deal? )

What may seem as hallos might be just overexposed bits, and yes I would love some space on the LHS but this was full frame. I can - of course - add canvas but my time is so limited, I only have an hour in the evenings to play, the rest is all work from 7:30 am till 7:30 pm. I often try and do some more work on my images after dinner and end up posting at 11:30 pm, by then I am too tired to see my errors and just happy to post and go to bed. I have a lot of time on my hands during the first half of the year, from August onwards it's all work till New Year. I still want to participate, despite the fact that I have not enough time to learn and put your advice into practice. Thank you so much for your kind comments and special thanks to Andreas for his input, I truly appreciate it.

Warmest regards, have a great Friday!

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela , as i said to OP , sharpening looks good , i meant it that way !!!
Now seeing the Color /Jpeg i feel it looks "crunchy ", i think it clashes with the more contrast and give the illusion being over sharpened .And you lost some fine detail in the conversion compared to color.
Here in the color version you have nice subtle sharpness , at least for me.

Re vignette , i would call it still a vignette effect what you have done manually :bg3:, as long as you like it .I am still not a fan of this.

Re dinner , no need for an extra one , will share what i know (well most of it) with you two guys for the fun of it . It took me years to get to this stage so there is more needed than 30 minutes :w3.
I am not sure if you get me right if use the word "halo" in this context , with USM /smart sharpen and High Pass , you work with halos , a light and dark halo .

We can discuss this in just not even 3 weeks time , well time is passing by quickly .

Cheers Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Gabriela,

leave the vignette. I love your conversion very much. Looks great with vignette:w3
very nice done. On the sharpening, some love to do it this way some the other way around. I am more in Andreas home. The sharpening looks fine for me :bg3:

Ciao
Anette

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you so much, Andreas!

You are right, I looked again now (after cooking dinner and taking my eyes off the image for a bit ) and I see precisely your point. I have also come to conclusion that the colour version would have been so much better, imagine it with just a tad of sharpening! But it's done now, no harm in redoing it in colour and I will take into consideration all that has been said.

Despite the fact that myself and Andre work side by side and share information, I have less knowledge in terms of PP work than he does. I focus on presentation and use my (sometimes too vivid) imagination to create something different every time, at the risk of receiving heavy crits when I post. I like playing and often try extreme methods to achieve what I want. Not everyone's cup of tea, and sometimes I look back and think "my goodness, what have I done..." but I take great pleasure in the game and so I keep doing this, because every now and then I have a degree of success with you (my critics) and then I am in 7th heaven...I really love participating in this forum and I really do not mind harsher critique, I guess you all know that by now...

Andreas, we cannot wait to meet you in person! Hopefully there'll be some evenings with no PP talk, we've come to see you as a friend and it will be great to just chill. But knowing Andre and his thirst for knowledge...We just want to show you the Kalahari as we know it, I know you will love it and the lack of fences will give you that sense of freedom we always enjoy. The challenge is, the three of us will have similar images :bg3:...Let us see what happens! Thank you again for your feedback here and help, I so appreciate it.

Warmest regards,

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dearest Anette,

I think we should make plans for you to join us next year in the KTP. Since you like camping and don't mind roughing it up a little...Thank you so much for your thoughts, much appreciated. I am a great fan of your work and find great encouragement in your words:5

Warmest regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

OOOH Gabriela , i have never seen that you received "heavy crits", all are very gentle with you because you are gentle with us.:wave:.Do not stop your way of working in general , just pick here and there ...... and built it into your WF.We all have different views and passions.
I mean if more than 50 % of the feedback is saying i.e. too sharp , i would try to listen .If just some say i.e. too sharp , including me :bg3:i would simply ignore that in fact.

And we will not end up with similar images .......... because you guys shoot NIKON and i CANON and for sure i will get the better ones ............ for sure , LOL. Well , well the gentle Andreas is back in the House :eek3:.

I am more than excited about the coming weeks

Andreas

[Anette Mossbacher]

Hi Gabriela,

KTP is on the list, love to go in our spring time. Camping is my thing love to sleep on the roof of my 4x4 and listen to the sounds of the bush.
Shot me a pm and we can make plans, I am sure we are not allowed to talk more private matters in here.
Btw, we had sun today, was gorgeous…... :bg3: :c3: :2eyes2:

Have a great evening and follow your thoughts/imagination when processing, it is the LHS brain :t3

Ciao Anette

[Gabriela Plesea]

Dearest Anette! PM on its way, thank you so much for your comments and suggestions, I shall try to use what is left of my LHS brain:bg3:
And Andreas, (LOL LOL LOL) I trust your judgement, I really do! I often look at your posts and think " his knowledge is way superior to mine", so leave the modesty aside, my friend! Despite my better equipment (LOL) you still have the upper edge when it comes to processing:t3

Oh, and I just want to wish you both, and also to anyone who happens to read our late night replies, a very good evening and a great end of the week! Enjoyed your feedback and took some lessons from them, will be back soon with more images:5

Warmest regards,

[Morkel Erasmus]

Love this Gabriela, and the monochrome really sets this off in a way the colour version can't. I would back off on the contrast in the deep blacks on the OP, but without losing the overall feel of the contrast (if that makes sense). I don't mind the vignette but it could be toned back just a smidge?

[Gabriela Plesea]

This makes sense to me Morkel, thank you! Let me give it another try and see what happens. Really appreciate your input here and I am happy to do an RP, at the risk of ending up with something very different than what I have in mind right now:S3: This happens to me a lot, by the way...

Weekend is around the corner, have a wonderful time...

Warmest regards,

[Mike Poole]

I'm a big fan of this shot. I really like the conversion, so whilst its not exactly an accurate representation of natural history, as a piece of art I think its great - the 'double pose' works brilliantly for me

[Gabriela Plesea]

So kind of you, Mike, I really really appreciate your words. Busy with an RP, hope you will like it, will post soon:w3

Thank you for taking the time to view and comment,

Wishing you a lovely week-end,