The sane Lorikeet alternative

[Dave Pastern]

Yes. You read right. Sane. Whilst Rainbow Lorikeets are as nutty as squirrel you know what, these beautiful cousins are much better behaved. Slightly smaller than their ratbag cousins but equally as beautiful. edit: not my best processing. The tree trunk is too bright, and for some reason, despite minimal sharpening, the bird looks scrunchy. I'm guessing it was the late afternoon sunlight introducing micro-contrast.

Dave

• Adobe Photoshop 25.6 (Windows)

 

[Jonathan Ashton]

Looks natural to me and super colours in the bird. The tree trunk could easily be controlled with a mask in ACR and if you thought necessary apply less selective sharpening to the subject - though it looks OK to me. I really likek the bright green against the bright blue sky. The crop looks fine - just wondering if a 3: portrait would have worked also.

 

[Ilija Dukovski]

The green, red and blue color combo stands out here. Tighter crop would work here I think.

 

[Dave Pastern]

The green, red and blue color combo stands out here. Tighter crop would work here I think.

Feel free to demonstrate how you would crop it Ilija.

Dave

 

[Dave Pastern]

Looks natural to me and super colours in the bird. The tree trunk could easily be controlled with a mask in ACR and if you thought necessary apply less selective sharpening to the subject - though it looks OK to me. I really likek the bright green against the bright blue sky. The crop looks fine - just wondering if a 3: portrait would have worked also.

Wait, you can mask in ACR? I didn't notice that option. I typically edit in Lightroom anyway. I need to pull the finger out and sort/cull 4.5k images from the past 2 months LOL. I'm currently de-motivated and procrastinating in a serious way LOL. Bad Dave. I should have some decent Scarlet Honeyeater images to show on the forums eventually.

 

[Dave Pastern]

Oops, I forgot to mention in my original post with image that I did use Generative AI to remove a trunk from the bottom Right hand corner of the frame. My bad!

 

[Ilija Dukovski]

• Adobe Photoshop 25.6 (Windows)

Feel free to demonstrate how you would crop it Ilija.

Dave

For example, you could go all the way to a very tight crop.

 

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Dave ... I like it as posted in the OP , specially I try to avoid pixel bashing like Ilja did .... there can be only a great IQ loss when doing things like that .
Love the colors and the overall frame .
What bothers me a bit are the very deep darks or blacks ... too much for my liking , burning the bright tree stump is an easy fix if you are not happy with the stump.

Adding the techs would be good , and save the file with the profile ....

TFS Andreas

 

[Steve Kaluski]

• Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 13.5 (Macintosh)

Hi Dave, yes you do need to add the Exif data in your intros and the file for web presentation requires an sRGB colour profile added, so it displays correctly. Apart from the Exif, if you can add if this is FF or cropped also helps in terms of feedback.

If you using Lr and shooting raw then change the Colour profile to Adobe standard instead of the crappy Adobe Color, it kills an image. Also if the file is above ISO2000 and you feel it needs little NR then you must apply DeNoise (Enhance) first, but the %'s do not need to be high ie ISO2000 (14%), ISO12.800 (66%) numbers can fluctuate either side but a rough guide. Try to avoid adding too much Contrast, Clarity and Blacks in Lr, if at all because it can add to some crunch when used heavy, plus adding Contrast/Clarity is a for of Contrast sharpening.

Saying all that and give it a Web profile, overall it's not bad and I think addresses some of your own concerns about the bark. Watch the blue creeping into the bark too.

 

[Dave Pastern]

Too tight a crop for my personal liking. I spent my first 18 months overdoing crops and I'm now more wary of them. I usually get them wrong LOL.

 

[Dave Pastern]

Hi Dave ... I like it as posted in the OP , specially I try to avoid pixel bashing like Ilja did .... there can be only a great IQ loss when doing things like that .
Love the colors and the overall frame .
What bothers me a bit are the very deep darks or blacks ... too much for my liking , burning the bright tree stump is an easy fix if you are not happy with the stump.

Adding the techs would be good , and save the file with the profile ....

TFS Andreas

Thanks Andreas. I prefer the OP shot too, Ilija's crop is too tight for my personal tastes, but everyone is different. Variety is indeed the spice of life.

The shadowy hollow was actually that dark in real life. The (suspected) female was inside the nest. I spotted her first, she posed on a trunk before entering. She knew I was there and didn't seem even remotely bothered with me. The tree was not far from a very popular walking path at Archerfield wetlands, so I am guessing they are both used to humans in close proximity. I had slowly approached her and she didn't seem perturbed by my presence and went into the hollow without a care in the world. Then the presumed male showed up and posed for me on the outside of the main trunk. Cheeky fellow. He didn't seem worried about me either, more curious as to what I was doing with this big thing in my hands.

I very rarely edit in ACR and haven't done so for years, so I am unaware of the masks. Will need to figure out how to access/use them in ACR I guess.

As to the saving and EXIF and ICC profile, I am bemused. I resized my 16 bit tiff to 1920px longest side (bilinear reduction). I then went to file ==> export ==> save for web. I did select colour profile sRGB but I am not sure what to set the drop down menu option to. Does save for web not include EXIF? How can I save in Photoshop CC and include the EXIF and ICC profile? I usually embed the profile after resizing before usually going file ==> save as (JPG). I usually save as maximum file quality though, which would be over the 600kb file size limit for the forums. How do I force Photoshop to save under 600kb using my normal method, or is there another method I can use?

Dave

 

[Dave Pastern]

Hi Dave, yes you do need to add the Exif data in your intros and the file for web presentation requires an sRGB colour profile added, so it displays correctly. Apart from the Exif, if you can add if this is FF or cropped also helps in terms of feedback.

If you using Lr and shooting raw then change the Colour profile to Adobe standard instead of the crappy Adobe Color, it kills an image. Also if the file is above ISO2000 and you feel it needs little NR then you must apply DeNoise (Enhance) first, but the %'s do not need to be high ie ISO2000 (14%), ISO12.800 (66%) numbers can fluctuate either side but a rough guide. Try to avoid adding too much Contrast, Clarity and Blacks in Lr, if at all because it can add to some crunch when used heavy, plus adding Contrast/Clarity is a for of Contrast sharpening.

Saying all that and give it a Web profile, overall it's not bad and I think addresses some of your own concerns about the bark. Watch the blue creeping into the bark too.

I forgot about denoising until I had started to edit in ACR. So, I applied denoise after some edits. I'd typically do denoise first (using DXO Pure RAW v2). As I said, not my best editing effort.

See my response to Andreas above. I usually embed a sRGB ICC profile in the image and my normal saving routine embeds the EXIF data too. save for web [depracated] doesn't seem to do so, or I'm using it wrong. If there is a better alternative, so that I can keep the file size under the 600kb file size limit can you please explain?

I did adjust the White and Black points for maximum dynamic range (using alt + slider to avoid clipping either). That is a typical part of my workflow in Lightroom (although I used ACR for this image, the process should be the same, no?).

Good point on the Blue hue in the tree trunk. I missed that (very BAD on my part). I'm usually a bit of a PP perfectionist, quite often taking 30-45 minutes per image to process in both Lightroom & Photoshop. This effort was a quick and dirty effort, so as I said, not my best effort. I really enjoy editing and I am far more confident than when I started 3 years ago. I find it rather cathartic, much like many people find gardening or cooking.

I have been crook with some bug since Saturday and should have been sorting/culling my RAW files but instead, the lazy me has been playing a game on my PS4 LOL. I take procrastination to new heights ;-) (ADHD baby!).

 

[Steve Kaluski]

I'd typically do denoise first (using DXO Pure RAW v2). As I said, not my best editing effort.

AHHA, this could be the foundation of 'crunchiness' Dave if you have any of the Optical Corrections checked, even Soft is too much, if you do use it then the only item checked should be Chromatic Aberration, however Denoise with Lr/ACR far outstrips DXO. In Lr it also creates a pure DNG, DXO does a look a like.

OK, if you are using Ps and Save for Web, Legacy, then it's probably a box you haven't checked, plus when you Optimise set it around 585/90, sometimes at 595kb you cannot upload the upload says too big.

Finally and I'm sure its correct Dave, but make sure all your ducks are in a row, Camera is set to Adobe RGB, Lr exports as ProPhoto and Ps is set to ProPhoto, so they all talk the same language.

 

[Dave Pastern]

AHHA, this could be the foundation of 'crunchiness' Dave if you have any of the Optical Corrections checked, even Soft is too much, if you do use it then the only item checked should be Chromatic Aberration, however Denoise with Lr/ACR far outstrips DXO. In Lr it also creates a pure DNG, DXO does a look a like.

OK, if you are using Ps and Save for Web, Legacy, then it's probably a box you haven't checked, plus when you Optimise set it around 585/90, sometimes at 595kb you cannot upload the upload says too big.

Finally and I'm sure its correct Dave, but make sure all your ducks are in a row, Camera is set to Adobe RGB, Lr exports as ProPhoto and Ps is set to ProPhoto, so they all talk the same language.

I'm using v2 Pure Raw Steve - I have had sharpness turned off for a very long time as it over sharpened images.

I find the optical corrections superior to Lightroom. I also find NR better than Lightroom (even my older v2 version). I trialled v4 but had nothing but problems with it (crashes when enabling GPU acceleration, etc). DXO's technical support was useless.

As I don't typically use the save for web option (deprecated now), yes, it is probably that I have missed something.

My camera is set to Adobe RGB. This really doesn't matter, since it's just a colour space embedded in the RAW data and can be modified in PP by an RAW editing software.

I disagree on colour space too - sRGB will have zero issues being correctly viewed on someone's device; whereas ProPhoto will if their viewing software cannot read that colour gamut. If I am printing, I convert to an appropriate CMYK colour space if I don't have any profiles prepared for said printer.

 

[Brian Sump]

Dave, sorry I'm late to the party.

One thing is for sure, you have some gorgeous birds over there. This is no exception.

I tend to be ok with your o.g. crop, however the downer for me is the huge shadowed hole in the tree. It's a bit unfortunate and distracting.

The plumage looks pretty good overall. Hope you get more to share of this species!

 

[Dave Pastern]

Dave, sorry I'm late to the party.

One thing is for sure, you have some gorgeous birds over there. This is no exception.

I tend to be ok with your o.g. crop, however the downer for me is the huge shadowed hole in the tree. It's a bit unfortunate and distracting.

The plumage looks pretty good overall. Hope you get more to share of this species!

Many thanks Brian. I have another image of a pair of Scaly breasted lorikeets that I am yet to process. Have started culling/sorting some images, have done ~1000 out of 4.5k on my hard drive LOL. Have another 500 un-imported shots on the camera still. So, it may take me some time to get around to processing images.