Sunset buffalos + Repost

You captured a very nice atmosphere in this frame.
The vegetation make a good window, and the colors are lovely.

Dust and a setting sun are a good combination in Africa.
Thx
Jef

I like the frame of the branches and the hue the dust created. Well done.

Very interesting view. The bushes and the color really make the image. Fine shot.

Hi Johan,

I like the natural frame and the colours in the "window" are very striking. While the image is already a strong one, if it were mine I'd probably play a little with the contrast - first darkening the blacks in the framing vegetation (especially on the right side) and I'd also experiment a little with the mid-tone contrast - I think having the shapes of the buffalo a little more distinct and visible would help. Just a thought...

Cheers...

Brad

Hi Johan... I like this a lot, and wonder how it might work with a vertical format, with just a small amount of vegetation on the right and left? Nice mood to this one.

Hi Johan, I was hoping to see one of your buffalo shots here as some looked really great on the back of your camera already. I like this one very much, you made the most of a fleeting and difficult opportunity; well done. The natural framing is wonderful and I like it as is, but I can understand Brad's suggestion as to darken the bush on the right, it might make this even stronger. As for the color, it looks more pinkish than I can remember the actual scene to be, BUT I do like it. If at all I would reduce the saturation just a tad.

Wonderful capture Johan, and I share the opinion that there is still more potential in this image. Suggestions above seem too good to pass up on. Thanks for sharing!

I like the frame and the sneak hunting feeling. The dust and colors makes it something special.
Good work!

Thanks for your comments.
It was a good mix of new ideas as well as some things I struggled with during processing and wasn't sure where to go.

I hadn't thought about the darkening of the branches and the alternative crop (I liked that crop as well, but didn't post it here because I wanted a comparable image for the other things).

More details on the buffalos was something I struggled a lot with during the processing of the original. I tried a narrow midtone mask from TK combioned with contrast as well as curves. I posted pretty much the amount I thought it could take before the colors exploaded. I desaturated (naturally), but couldn't really compensate in a good way.
The original was desaturated using TK saturation mask and that was probably not the right choice this time, since it pretty much left the pink colors Vincent commented on unaffected (they were hardly visible before midtone curves was applied).

Anyway, since you thought it needed some more buffalo detail I tried again (and struggled again :-). Except for giving the midtone contrast and curves another chance, I tried lightening and darkening through different masks and I think that was better from a color point of view.
How would you do this?

I tried to address all your comments. Please let me know if any or all of the changes improve the image. Thanks.

P.S.
Thanks to Tony K for his masks - This is my first attempt at processing an image with them. It was fun and there is definately a lot more to learn there.

Love the moody atmosphere !

Hi again Johan,

This is the type of image where I prefer to use a totally different tool to work on the mid tones. The tool is called Light Zone and while it does many things, what I like about it is the control I get over the mid-tones. It would take about 10 seconds in Light Zone for me to tweak the mid-tones of the buffaloes to pull out a little more detail.

So...the way I would approach this image (your original one) would be to:

1. Adjust mid tones with Light Zone and

2. Produce a luminosity mask that selects the dark bushes only (I have built my own actions to do this - similar to Tony K.'s but with a few tweaks I prefer) and then I'd likely simply use that mask in combination with an exposure adjustment layer to darken the bushes a little more.

I could grab your larger version and take a few seconds to play with it if you want to see what these two changes would do to your image (it will be similar to your re-post, but with subtle difference in a few regions - the average layperson wouldn't notice the differences but I'm sure you would). Do you want me to go ahead and do this (and post the tweaked version here)? It will be take me about 2 mins to do (really).

Cheers...

Brad

Brad - Yes, please do.

Hi Johan,

OK - a 90 second tweak. I did exactly what I said I was going to do in my previous comment. Bear in mind I was editing a low-res 8-bit JPEG, so there are some artifacts. As discussed, I went darker on the vegetation to give it a more graphic feel and then played with the mid-tones as described before. Changes are subtle but I'm sure you'll notice them!

Cheers...

Brad

Johan - this is a very compelling image. I actually like all three versions (your original, your reworked repost, and Brad's further enhancement)! I do think Brad's suggestions and tweak really help make the buffalo pop a little without degrading the mood whatsoever. I am torn on the darker foreground vegetation vs original...both have strong merits IMO.

Nicely captured!

Thanks John for your nice comments. I agree with you on the popping.

Don't know if the post is getting for old for you to revisit Brad, but thank you once more for your recommendations and the reworking. It sure did bring out some more of the buffalos.
I downloaded the Light Zone trial version. I have only spent a day or so with it, so I'm still a rookie. Pressing my luck with some more questions. I hope you don't mind?

Were you primarily using the ZoneMapper for this work or something else?
I mostly worked with that (blend mode: Normal), but had a couple of issues:
1. Reasonably smooth gradients between light levels or colors in the original had a tendency to turn into "blotches" (hope that makes sense). I can't see this in your version to the extent I experienced it (even if you were working on much lower res).
2. Changing one region inevitable makes other areas darker (primarily the leg/grass area in my case) or lighter. I see you managed to control this. Trying to restrict the luminosity range setting, I felt, had a tendency to introduce some banding.

Posting once more to illustrate. I hope the points are visible on the web and that you don't mind another post (even if there are quite many already).

Tried the RGB setting instead of Luminosity and managed to bring out a little of the animals, without the drawbacks of darkening. I also tried a couple of the other filters but didn't find many of them useful for this purpose.
The "light" buffalos in the background were definately the hardest. Couldn't really get more detail in them to start with. Had some luck with one of the HDR filters finally.

How did you do?

Thanks
/Johan

Hey Johan,

Let's take this offline - I'll email you...

Brad