Missed! (+ Repost)

Gallery: AvianPosted July 22, 2012125 views7 comments

This Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was fishing a small local pond. I thought I might get a shot with a fish, but then the bill came up empty. No fish for the GBH. I still got a photo, though. I like the splash and the sunlight.

Canon 7D, Sigma 150-500 at 500 mm, f/10, ISO 400, 1/640 sec. Cropped to 66 % to remove flotsam in the water.

I use LR4 to process my photos. To export, I set the file size limit to the NPN max values and LR figures out the jpeg compression setting. This time, I got an error message saying that a jpg file meeting the file size criteria could not be generated. I had to disable the file size limit setting and play with the compression setting manually. Both have a jpg quality of 84 %. Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks for looking. C & Cs are always welcome. Roger.

Comments

7 comments

Comment posted by Richard Ditch on July 22, 2012 at 1:43 PM

I don't use Lightroom so I can't address the specifics. But I wonder about your workflow based on your comment - are you downsizing the image and converting to jpeg and compressing the image all in a single step? When do you do the sharpening, or is that part of what Lightroom is also doing in your single step?

The light is nice in this, and I like the action. A complete reflection would be good as well as some clockwise rotation.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1031 Posts, 12705 Comments

Comment posted by Roger Leekam on July 22, 2012 at 2:20 PM

I like the feather detail and water splash action. My taste might be to selectively brighten the shadowed areas in the rear half of the bird. Can't help with the CR4 problem.

Registered on May 28, 2009, 83 Posts, 646 Comments

Comment posted by Howard Cheek on July 22, 2012 at 6:15 PM

Look very good large Roger, well composed. Like the action here, even if the GBH came up empty.
They always miss more times than they hit.. It's the batting average that counts

I agree with Rich on the rotation, and since this is cropped at 2/3rds you have room to work.
I use an older version of Adobe, so I can't help with LR4

Registered on July 24, 2008, 1201 Posts, 10758 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 22, 2012 at 8:30 PM

Agree with Rich on the rotation and reflection. I use LR4 as well, but do my processing for web in PS. I will sometimes get under 80% (begrudgingly) for the larger image, but I almost always better that for the 720 image. Most times, the quality for the smaller image will be 6% to 10% better than the 1200 image.

I like the action here and the light is good. The heron is well sharpened, although just a bit soft around the head, probably motion blur.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Rick Turner on July 22, 2012 at 11:28 PM

I have experienced the same issue in lr3 and lr4. Don't have the solution.

Nice capture and love the action and top feather. More on bottom to complete reflection would help.

Registered on February 18, 2012, 534 Posts, 2755 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 22, 2012 at 11:35 PM

Nice action, Roger. My only nit is that the head is just a tiny bit soft, probably due to the motion. Great light and detail on the body.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Roger Kirchen on July 24, 2012 at 6:06 PM

Thanks all for your comments. Yes the head is a bit soft....and there are lots of sharp eyes out there. Thanks.

All the image editing is done in LR. The downsizing and output sharpening is done directly in the LR Export module. I should experiment with using PS for that. For this image, the output sharpening was set to Screen->High, whereas usually I use Screen->Standard. In any case, the same error occurs with the "Standard" setting.

The rear half of the bird was brightened, the image was rotated CW and the crop was relaxed as much as posible at the bottom. Also, the worst offenders of flotsam were cloned out at the bottom.

Interesting to hear that GBHs miss more often than they hit. That like me when I'm fishing.

Thanks for all your comments. Roger

Registered on March 6, 2011, 95 Posts, 847 Comments