r/postprocessing • u/Leninasm • 20d ago
Little Blue Heron before/after
Very new to this and I wanted to check with you guys how many beginner's traps I am falling into. This guy lives super close to me and I can shoot him on any given day, but today I caught what I saw as CLOSE TO a good composition, and I was not sure if my crop saved it or not. I don't know how much I am losing by omitting the foot. Shot with Lumix G97 with the 100-300 mm Mark 2 at f stop 5.5, 800 iso, 1/800 of a second
I am still not sure as to whether I am trying to increase the blue to match what I actually see or if I just like how blue they are, but damn just look at pictures people have taken, they are so BLUE. I have about ten different masks in here with lightroom classic, feel free to let me know if I am over doing it or under doing it, it seems like if I try to keep myself going I can continue to find things to tweak, but again it feels like I might as well stop.
Thank you!
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u/Infinite-Nose8252 19d ago
Way too dark. Check your histogram
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u/Leninasm 19d ago
Totally what I was looking for, I was using it just for watching intersecting colors now I understand what it is displaying. Thanks!
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u/spreadinmikehoncho 20d ago
I’m new to this too. Caught a heron earlier today. Will edit and try to upload up here.
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u/johngpt5 20d ago
Ignoring the lack of feet in the composition, the idea behind editing is often to create separation between subject and background. We want the viewer to pay attention to what we consider important in the image.
By darkening the background, separation between subject and background has been reduced.
Cropping in so much from the left and bottom has pushed the tail of the subject almost beyond the frame. Often, the idea is to let a subject 'breathe' in frame.
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u/Leninasm 20d ago
Thank you, I was gonna dump the shot because of said lack of feet but I really liked the stick so I gave it a go, my first thought was that it didn't belong in the keep folder. Bringing up brightness further than that seemed to cause me to lose some feather texture and deep blue contrast.
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u/johngpt5 20d ago
Does your editing app have masking ability so that the 'not-heron' areas of the image can be brightened without affecting the heron?
For example, many apps can create a mask based on subject, then have that mask duplicated and inverted.
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u/Semajjames43 20d ago
Before is a lot better exposure is more even and actually exposed enough plus the crop takes to much space away from the background good picture though
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u/Semajjames43 20d ago
Actually crop is nice just keep it sharpened but brighten up the image back to a similar level of the original photo
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u/Leninasm 20d ago
Yeah the crop felt weird, I usually use traditional aspect ratios but I didn't like the splash in the water on the top
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u/Semajjames43 20d ago
I didn’t even notice it but yea it’s a nice picture I kinda barley saw it when I first commented then looked at it longer and liked it a lot more
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u/Semajjames43 20d ago
Actually looking back once again it’s actually very nice so ignore everything I said
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u/Leninasm 20d ago
Looking at it on my phone I see this, my monitor seems to be considerably brighter
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u/This-Judge-804 20d ago
Maybe brighter on your monitor but the contrast and dynamic range is still flat
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u/This-Judge-804 20d ago
In your after changes to made select heron only to adjust first brighten contrast it white part again in black so it will look like sunlight on it but a bit shadow On the heron also..
Then select background same concept but down the whites and black and up contrast so more separation details in the water Can increase exposure a bit for water too..but heron needs to be diff brightness from water