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Two little ducks

Posted by
Curly (South Shields, United Kingdom) on 2 June 2010 in Animal & Insect and Portfolio.

I promised Daniela and others some time ago that I would publish a "before and after" and try to talk you through my processes, so before you pour over this picture, take a long look at the original.

With this shot the camera's settings were aperture priority, auto white balance, and auto iso, I had set the self timer to ten seconds and placed the camera on the ground as the ducks came waddling down the path alongside the River Tyne in Corbridge. As you can see from the original it looks pretty flat and lifeless, the conditions were relatively dull and overcast and fairly damp after some showers. So how did I "rescue" it?

From the RAW file I made three new .dng files at two stop intervals -2EV, 0EV, and +2EV, these were then taken into Photomatix to make a pseudo HDR .jpg using pretty high light smoothing and micro contrast to retain the realistic look that I was after, this became my working document in Photoshop.

The next stage in Photoshop was to make a new adjustment layer and tweak the curves for a little extra contrast, and then another adjustment layer to slightly increase the saturation, then I flattened.

Next, I duplicated the layer and using Quick Mask I made a selection of the two ducks, hit ctrl and j to set them on their own layer, then turned off the visibility. Now moving to the layer below I used the Nik Viveza 2 plug in to gently adjust the "structure" of the whole picture. Now returning to the "ducks" layer I used the Smart Sharpen to give them just a little more definition , almost done now.

I flattened the image once more and duplicated the layer, this new layer was for the final dodge and burn to increase the dynamic contrast and add some greater interest to the light. I find it best to dodge and burn on a separate layer in case you overdo it, the layer can easily be deleted and you can start again. I use a very soft edged large brush when I dodge and burn, set the parameters like this: dodge, set to highlights and 5% opacity, burn, set to shadows and 7% opacity. Dodging lightens highlight areas, and burning darkens shadow areas, when used with these settings. Just brush gently over the areas where you want to accentuated the light (dodging) or darken the shadows for extra contrast (burning), each pass of the brush adds to the effect, so go easy.

Once I was happy with the outcome all I needed to do was rotate and straighten the top layer and make my final crop, thus losing the area of sky in the top left corner and bringing the ducks closer to the viewer. Flatten the image and then I was finished.

Seems like a lot of work? Well perhaps thirty minutes, but I hope you agree that it was half an hour well spent, it also shows that HDR doesn't have to look outlandish!

PENTAX K100D 1/20 second F/5.6 ISO 200 18 mm

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Bettina from Los Angeles, United States

And so begins a fairy tale. Wonderful image. Story worthy. :)

2 Jun 2010 5:21am

Pavan Kaul from Mumbai, India

Wonderful viewpoint, colors and detail...love it!

2 Jun 2010 5:26am

MK from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It looks much better than the original. well done

2 Jun 2010 5:32am

Skyriani from Nelson, New Zealand

Thanks for this Curly. I hope you might walk us through processing more than once....maybe doing a more elementary version for people who use more basic equipment and can't start with a RAW file.

2 Jun 2010 5:49am

❀ Yvonne Simons ❀ from Tilburg, Netherlands

So do you do that! nice!

2 Jun 2010 5:55am

PascalXLD from Rennes, France

Très sympa ce cadrage ils font impressionnants ainsi

Bonne journée

2 Jun 2010 6:01am

STEED from SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE, France

Cooooooooooooooooool !!!!!!

2 Jun 2010 7:09am

MontereyJohn from Salinas, California, United States

You sure got down on their level! :) Love it.

2 Jun 2010 7:10am

Jacques from Nantes, France

Very nice, and many thanks for your explanation. It's not very often that somebody explains these ways to do his work.

2 Jun 2010 7:19am

danou-yepa from Nice, France

very nice capture , good framing , colors and light .

2 Jun 2010 8:09am

PRASHANT from Mumbai, India

Lovely....

2 Jun 2010 8:43am

✿ Anina ✿ from Auckland, New Zealand

WOW! I can't believe it's actually the 'same shot'! This is brilliant! I just realised how little I really know about processing. Normally I just adjust the contrast and exposure. Now I know why your shots are always so striking. Thanks for the explanation. I hope you are planning on doing some more of these "mini processing workshops" here.

2 Jun 2010 10:02am

Sonia Nansid from Stockholm, Sweden

Great tutorial Curly! Btw, Ive been wanting to ask you for a few days now what plug-in or sofware do you recomend for noise reduction? Ive been trying a new camera, a Nikon D200 and I have some noise problems on the first shots I took. Thanks!

2 Jun 2010 10:40am

@Sonia Nansid: Imagenomic's Noiseware plug in is my choice, I doubt that you will find a better product, if you cannot afford the plug in the free stand alone Noiseware Community Edition is very good too.

Hiro from Kyoto, Japan

Great 30 min work, Curly ! It becomes much much better than original. Bravo !

2 Jun 2010 11:18am

Tomix from landerneau, France

wonderful shot! i like the angle at their height!

2 Jun 2010 11:37am

Anthony Morgan Lambert from Bielefeld(old west wales boy), Germany

That´s one heck of a lot of work for two little ducks !! :-)

2 Jun 2010 12:12pm

MARIANA from Waterloo, Canada

Are they lost ? Looking for water ? Sweet image !

2 Jun 2010 12:38pm

Amanda from Jersey City, United States

Wow! It does seem like alot of work, but it was worth it! A great deal of depth and texture were brought out with the processing. I love that the ducks didn't seem to mind a giant camera in their path...they just kept walking towards it. :)

2 Jun 2010 1:31pm

CherishedKeepsakePhotography from Chapmanville, United States

amazing ... love the coloring and detail you captured.. great lead as well

2 Jun 2010 1:48pm

بابامحمد from tehran, Iran

yeah ... so good capture and edit, tanx for Learning ;-)

2 Jun 2010 2:34pm

Xerophytes from London, United Kingdom

Good lighting! And worth the hardwork, it doesn't look HDR-ed at all!

2 Jun 2010 3:15pm

Patricia (✿◠‿◠)❤ from Brecht, Belgium

I love it, its a funny pic

2 Jun 2010 4:04pm

Calusarus from St Sorlin en Valloire, France

Very nice meeting. An interesting street :) shot

2 Jun 2010 4:57pm

Marie-France from Sceaux d, France

they are so funny...very good picture....

2 Jun 2010 5:21pm

k@ from Paris, France

... but ducks turn both their heads on you, cool ;))

2 Jun 2010 5:42pm

Yvon from Orleans, France

great capture

2 Jun 2010 5:53pm

kate from lincolnshire, United Kingdom

they sit well in the green nature:)!!

2 Jun 2010 6:07pm

Larry Elkins from Bisbee, United States

Curly, I almost never like the in camera result. Half the fun in my opinion is the post processing. I think it's neat that you're sharing your techniques with everyone. Larry

2 Jun 2010 6:33pm

alex centrella from California, United States

A GREAT CAPTURE !

2 Jun 2010 6:35pm

Burdigala ecosse from Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Your explanations are very interesting and I feel I am learning a lot!

I love this photo - there is so much humour in it! It makes me smile!

2 Jun 2010 6:59pm

Shahryar from Isfahan, Iran

beautiful shot :)

2 Jun 2010 7:00pm

K.B.R from Switzerland

Very nice shot with this beautiful little ducks :)

2 Jun 2010 7:05pm

Willem from Noord-Scharwoude, Netherlands

Beautifully photographed from a pretty and good position

2 Jun 2010 7:06pm

Steven from Chicagoland, United States

Great perspective that you have captured and the technique to achieve it. I love the result. I like your "outlandish" HDR's too. No bias on my part. ;-)

2 Jun 2010 7:06pm

M@ndy from London, United Kingdom

is this what you meant by masculine killer instincts?!

2 Jun 2010 7:15pm

@M@ndy: Some more masculine humour tomorrow M@ndy

Krunal from Mumbai, India

wonderful POV, as though shot by another duck

2 Jun 2010 7:47pm

A.b.R from tunis, Tunisia

I do really like the original shot, how the depth of field is clear and colors are brighter with natural saturation. that let me say that after is nice also because it shows trees very beautifull............congratulations

2 Jun 2010 8:09pm

Loner from Wörgl, Austria

That´s a very nice shot - but - if I had so much work with a photo, taking photos no more fun would make me. Nice greetings from Sonja

2 Jun 2010 8:17pm

flyingwind风飞扬 from Bridgetown, Barbados

Hoho, fabulous family! Nice walking like that!

2 Jun 2010 10:01pm

Susan from Fort Lauderdale, FL, United States

It's a very realistic looking shot....so you accomplished your goal....and thanks for the step by step....always interesting to hear how things are done, and I'm sure I'll pull some little tid bit out and store it for future use!!!

2 Jun 2010 10:32pm

Nigel from Avening, United Kingdom

All that effort - excellent result.

2 Jun 2010 10:41pm

Paul from summerside, Canada

Greta angle very nice

3 Jun 2010 12:27am

Jerry from Malang, Indonesia

Nice angle.... and cool duck, I guess...

3 Jun 2010 1:27am

Bill Brown from California, United States

I fine job of HDR processing! I also like the tighter crop on this version.

3 Jun 2010 4:52am

Sandy Weston from Madison, Maine, United States

Cool dudes...these two! Love the perspective.....Awesome minimal processing Curly!

4 Jun 2010 1:38am

Sumit from Bangalore, India

Curly... thanks for the great write up. Useful to see the work flow of other photographers. Hopefully, I will pick up a couple of ideas from your post-processing.

5 Jun 2010 3:54am

Magda from Vancouver, Canada

Thank you for sharing your before and after shot! Excellent work :)

5 Jun 2010 5:23am

Adam from Adelaide, Australia

Great write-up Curly - you've done a fantastic job explaining it, and the result is superb too. ;)

6 Jun 2010 2:39am

StarCosmosBleu from Bedford.Qc, Canada

An interesting work flow...more patience than i have for sure...and the results are there i came out beautifully..thank you

7 Jun 2010 3:52pm

♏arleen from Doesburg, Netherlands

That was 30 minutes well spent...what a difference!
I try to remember to place te cam on the ground......awesome result!

7 Jun 2010 7:10pm

Pascale from Nevers, France

Excellent post processing . Very good job !!

8 Jun 2010 5:43pm

PENTAX K100D
1/20 second
F/5.6
ISO 200
18 mm

hdr
colour
ducks
corbridge
river-tyne