Help with this Snow Goose photo.

[ngannet]

Just a question about this photo (and other white-bird photos). Other than shooting at different times of day and post-processing, what can one do to reduce the blown-out white hotspots? I know very little about post processing and have an old version of photoshop (7.0) and photostudio 4 that came with the Rebel XT. I shoot in high quality jpeg, mainly since I shoot a lot of photos and just don't have time to wait a million years for the RAW image to load and then PP it. I know this should probably be in another section of the forum, but the Nature and animals people seem to be pretty cool and shoot the same kinds of photos as I. Feel free to edit this image or give me suggestions on how to improve via the primitive version of photoshop I have. I did nothing to it but resize it and upload it. Thanks.

http://www.pbase.com/image/54543523.jpg

[WepWaWep]

I'm not the best at this, but I just went in and worked the shadows and highlight, a little balance and contrast and then USM.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/images/attach/jpg.gif

[dancad]

Unfortunately, the blown highlights here are just that...blown. (I checked the histogram and there are some pixels that are completely to the right ). This means the details in those areas are lost. In a scene such as this one, the best way is to use EC in-camera, probably around -2/3 this case.

Other than that you can use the levels, or curves to bring down some of the hot spots, but he blown ones will remain solid white. You then might want to select those white areas and fill them with a slightly darker shade of white (but not too much as it risks looking fake!). There will be no details, but wont look so bright.

BTW I like the scene you've captured...nice to see them somewhere other than a plain old field.

[Dimitri_V]

Just a question about this photo (and other white-bird photos). Other than shooting at different times of day and post-processing, what can one do to reduce the blown-out white hotspots? I know very little about post processing and have an old version of photoshop (7.0) and photostudio 4 that came with the Rebel XT. I shoot in high quality jpeg, mainly since I shoot a lot of photos and just don't have time to wait a million years for the RAW image to load and then PP it. I know this should probably be in another section of the forum, but the Nature and animals people seem to be pretty cool and shoot the same kinds of photos as I. Feel free to edit this image or give me suggestions on how to improve via the primitive version of photoshop I have. I did nothing to it but resize it and upload it. Thanks.


My only advice will be...

Shoot few photos (not alot) , shoot them raw , and have them all as keepers.

I think that the way you speak,you need to improve your shooting tecnique,not your PP skills as they come alot faster with practice and with the comfort of your house warmth.

Hope this helps.