Just for Fun No C&C will be given: Fallow Deer

[Peter Fitzpatrick]

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Thanks for looking

 

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks for looking

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Peter,

Your pictures are clearly celebrating the fallow deer. The male is noble and the female/fawn is beautiful. Each are rendered in detail against the background. The latter is presented with very low rank. It's interesting to me how varied our representation of animals can be. It reminds me of opinions people make of folk the meet. Often, such ideas have more to do with the person coming up with the opinion than the subjects themselves.

Here, too, we have a major influence of the attitude of the photographer-artist to where the lens is pointed. Take the very different work of Dwayne as, here, for example:

Dwayne Oakes Evening Fade​

One again, Dwayne,

A delicate representation of the dear in its habitat. The detail in the grass and trees is lit just right for it to have significance but not shout at us or take away from the deer itself, camouflaged in the background. This balance has a sensitivity which gives us a tranquil mood. Still, as the deer is visible to us, it has a sense of vulnerability. It's this which adds a dimension of empathy from us as we too are vulnerable.

As I have remarked, the Dwayne's deer is shown as part of the habitat, almost as if we had cut through some ancient rock and found this scene preserved. Dwayne appears to conceive that the deer with the plants constitute almost one inseparable unit.

In contrast, Peter, your own photographs celebrate individual animals, each with it's own bearing. This designation of importance is a special mode of action you have chosen and executed well.

I hope we see more variations in personal style in animal photography. It's part of the reward of spending time with other people's pictures.

Thanks for sharing.

Asher

Just one tiny niggle. Perhaps the edge of the antlers is a little sharp. One approach is to do the sharpening on a separate layer and then soften the edge with a 20% black brush until it is just still sharp enough but no longer calls attention to itself.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Just one tiny niggle. Perhaps the edge of the antlers is a little sharp. One approach is to do the sharpening on a separate layer and then soften the edge with a 20% black brush until it is just still sharp enough but no longer calls attention to itself.

Hi Asher,

I agree that the sharpening is a bit too prominent. You describe one possible solution, and there a many more, no doubt, so I'll add mine.

The method I use is partly based on the automatic reduction of oversharpening when the edge already has a high contrast. It also reduces the risk of clipping/halos. The best thing is, it's automatic (but applying it in a sharpening layer allows to mask at will).

I use an action to automate the layer creating procedure. I create a duplicate layer, put it in Luminosity Blend If mode, and then use any preferred method of sharpening on that layer. Here are the layer style settings:

As can be seen in the magnified small radius sharpened gradient edges, the roll-off towards high contrast eges is gradual, and clipping of the sharpening halo is prevented. One can still mask the sharpening layer, or use an overall opacity, or even use multiple sharpening layer copies. There is lot's of flexibility and it is fast to execute.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

A side track off topic on Sharpening by an action!

Bart,

Thanks for your eagle eye in picking up that I deal with one image at a time; UGGH!! Part of this comes from my selection of a limited number of images from large weekly performance shoots, but then that leaves a thousands of images in my library that will have to be worked on down the road for publication in print or on the web if they are picked by the staff. Certainly, for studio work, where all the images have to be prepared, your method makes sense.

I do fade the sharpened layer in Luminosity but your approach is more rational in that it's automatic and applies to thousands of images. Do you have a set of actions according to the size of image output?

I could have this action then as part of the size designation and conversion to jpg and sRGB color space, if appropriate.

Asher

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Bart,

Thanks for your eagle eye in picking up that I deal with one image at a time; UGGH!! Part of this comes from my selection of a limited number of images from large weekly performance shoots, but then that leaves a thousands of images in my library that will have to be worked on down the road for publication in print or on the web if they are picked by the staff. Certainly, for studio work, where all the images have to be prepared, your method makes sense.

Having an action to create that sharpening layer with the correct fiddly settings is a huge time saver. Therefore it can (and should) be applied after downsampling for Web publishing, and you don't even have to save a layered version because it can be instantly recreated.

I do fade the sharpened layer in Luminosity but your approach is more rational in that it's automatic and applies to thousands of images. Do you have a set of actions according to the size of image output?

I only create the layer after downsampling, but I also do use an action for the actual quick downsampling for Web publishing. It basically handles pre-blurring based on the size of my Raw size images to reduce aliasing, conversion to sRGB, downsampling (to fit in an 800x800 pixel dimension), calling(!) the existing Sharpening layer action, changing the mode to 8-bits per channel, adding a Copyright text, and if the position of the copyright notice never changes one could add saving for web and devices.

There are a few steps in the action that can be made interactive for different scenarios. The amount of blur can vary if a cropped image is used, and the 800x800 dimensions can also be made adjustable for other uses.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[John Angulat]

Hi Peter,
Thanks for sharing these images.
Very nicely done.

...and thank you Bart for sharing the sharpening tips.
It seems like there isn't a day I don't learn something new or helpful here!