Potrait of rajbehara female cub

[Harshad Barve]

Taken at Rajbehara

Nikon D300
Nikon 600MM Tele
ISO 200


C & C welcome

Harshad

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Harshad,
Lovely. The grasses seem to frame its face. Like the angle. If you would have placed the tiger just a bit to the right, then the hind leg portion would not have been visible. I think that would have further improved the image. Did you get to see the cub with tumor. It just ran away from us. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Harshad Barve]

No Sabyasachi

I could not see that cub & as far as front leg is concerned it is not visible in full frame also

Harshad

[Harshad Barve]

Hi all

another version added

would like to know which looks better, 2nd one looks oversharp to me

Experts please comment

Sabyasachi & Kiran Khanzode specially

Harshad

[Kiran Ghadge]

Love the 2nd one... it looks perfect to me

[Kiran Khanzode]

I am no expert by any means...but I do like to give my sincere opinions. I was never known to be a shy person. My views...sometimes are hard to digest, they do get me in trouble:D...get ready for the assault.

Just kidding ! :p

Composition and the low angle is great...vertical is best for portraits...duh !!

The grass strands do frame his face...indeed, very nice. Just like a tiger coming out of a lotus flower. Just like 'OK saboon se nahata hu, kamal sa khil jata hu' types...
Bah...enough of the artsy stuff, but that's what I feel !

Technically and aesthetically, the image is well balanced. Except for some over exposed spots(technical) and the awkward crop (aesthetic).

Image #1 was definitely soft.

Absolutely agree that you could have cropped the sloppy back side and just framed the face and the neck with the forearms showing. Maybe, crop on the right side right where the grass ends but that might be too tight...you be the judge.

#2 does appear a bit over sharpened...and as a result, the BG has grains now. Every time one adds sharpening, noise creeps in the unwanted parts of an image. That, and subsequent adjustments to the image can further enhance the noise and degrade the image. That is why it is recommended to keep sharpening as the last piece of your workflow and localized to areas that you want to look sharp. Also, in that case, Photoshop adjustment layers are your friends, apply sharpening to the animal only, clean up the BG with a mask.

Catchlight in the eye is what makes or kills a portrait for me. Lifeless eyes convey nothing much... In your case, woohoo, we have catchlight !!!

Contrast (to my eyes) is lacking a bit.

The highlights on the white fur on the right side of the face and right eyebrow are blown to bits...cannot recover. I tried to burn some...but, they's just gone :-).
Like I have told you countless times before, your images are great, they just need "polish".

It is all very easy to do, looks lengthy in writing, people make a big deal out of image editing/post processing.Some get defensive, some take it in strides (like you). Hey, even I am learning...

Most of the time these and a few other basic adjustments is all one needs instead of 10 page workflows with 3 tools and tiff files. To me, PP on a photo is equally important as the photo and that's why I rant too much about it. Yes, I do spend time taking photos too !:p

Anyway, going by the 'practice what I preach' principle, I worked off of your first jpeg and here's your image, in a 3rd version, with 'cherry blossom' polish. Let me know if anything appears overdone, cause it does look better to my eyes, not necessarily true for other people.

Does it not look worthy enough to be on a cover page ?

And, see you in Bandhavgarh, Over And Out !

PS: I had posted this link on the Image Processing section on INW, here it is again:

http://www.tipsfromthetopfloor.com/psc/index.php

[Harshad Barve]

Great explanation & thanks for posting your version

Harshad

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice explanation Kiran! That was good.

Don't feel shy in commenting. This is a peer-to-peer learning forum. I call it peer-to-peer learning because wildlife photography is a life long learning and all of us are in different levels of expertise but still learning. As learners we are supposed to be like Sun. The way the Sun picks up water even from a muddy stream, we are supposed to learn from everyone. So don't worry on commenting, only people who like their images being critiqued come here.

Look forward to images from the imminent bandhavgarh trip. I am sure both of you will get some nice sightings.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi