Hi everyone, this is an image that I took last month. I did a quick edit and posted it on Facebook as I do normally. I didn’t think it was a great shot, but it was something unusual for me and it was fun, basically not meant to be fine art. Needless to say, one of my friends wants to buy a print of it for her living room. This request has left me very nervous. I don’t think it’s that great of a shot so I want to do the best I can do to it in post before sending it off to the printers.
### What technical feedback would you like if any?
My lens wasn’t long enough to fill the frame with the bird so I had to crop. My original edit for social media was pretty heavily cropped. When my friend asked for a print I had to open the crop up more so I had enough pixels to do the size print she wanted. So in turn I’ve opened up the composition more and felt I had to do more burning to darken down the distracting spots. I feel I’ve done a horrible job at it. Every time I start over I just seem to make it worse. Any help in this area would be most appreciated.
### What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Artistically, well, I asked a quite prominent fellow photographer for some advice on an earlier over-processed edit, and he was the one who suggested I open up the crop (and ditch some of my other edits). While he said my new cropped version was better, I didn’t want to impose on him anymore and needed a more specific critique. So I played with the placement of the owl to eliminate as many distractions as possible. If anyone feels a better placement is there, please do tell! And any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Shot with a Nikon Z6, Tamron 100-400mm at 400 mil. f6.3, 1/80th of a second, & ISO 100. Edited in Lr & Ps. The only things I eliminated were a few stray branches sticking in from the borders.
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I can see why your friend likes this. I like the airiness of the tree and the light looks great-makes me think of a clear crisp day with the warmth of the sun. When I look at the enlarged images, it seems to me the detail is actually better in your facebook post and I don’t see the fringing or haloing that I see in the first photo. Both compositions work, but I think I like the second comp better as it seems more intimate. Have you tried to print the more heavily cropped photo? I’m sure there will be others with some good suggestions for you.
The first photo in my original post was from a virtual copy I made and then started the processing from scratch. Perhaps I should go back to my original file/edit and open up the crop till the pixel count is where it should be for an 11 x 14 print. I didn’t even notice the halos or fringing on the posted photo. The detail would be sharper in the 2nd photo as I added an Orton effect to parts of the first one. I thought it gave it a more painterly look. Perhaps I should rethink that.
I have not printed either of these, no. I don’t have my own printer so I farm out all of my print jobs to Bay Photo. I suppose I could do a trial print on my computer at work, just to see how it comes out. It’s not meant for fine art photos, but I suppose for a review it would be ok.
Thanks so much for your thoughts Allen! I really appreciate them. I’ll try and work on it again and see what I come up with.
I prefer your original framing, as the added tree material is not very pretty. At most I might open up that crop 15-20%. PS has a good ability to enlarge an image to print resolution. As to image quality, I’d just go back to the raw file and start over with minimal processing, keeping an eye on things at 100%. It looks like you have good material to work with.
I also prefer the cropped image. It looks like you have pretty reasonable image quality but your idea of sending a copy to get it printed first would give you the most information. Definitely redo this from the original with his little manipulation is possible. And many of us would also crop or clone away some of the tree material sticking out of the birds left ear, for example.
Thanks Diane, I tend to agree with you, that is the view my friend chose in the first place. Back to the drawing room. Appreciate your thoughts. Thanks!
That’s been a thought of mine too. I’m not very good at cloning and if were just the branches I would be ok, but it’s also the shadow of said branch across it’s face I’d have to deal with. I may give it a try to see. Don’t want to blemish that beautiful face. Thanks!
