bearded dragon. too much sharpening?

[CharlieD]

just wondering what you guys think of this? i was playing around and may have gone a little nuts with the unsharp mask. also i couldnt really nail down the compostion that i wanted. i have an idea in mind but i couldnt get it to work out with the picture and how i cropped it. i think the lighting could be better. thanks!

[Meaty0]

Doesn't look oversharpened to me. But the sharpening has brought out the noise in the background. You could run the image through Noise Ninja or Neat Image, but just restrict the noise reduction to the background using masks.

[CharlieD]

ok thanks!

after looking at dave hill's website for a few minutes, my photo is seeming less than impressive right now haha...

[Titus213]

Hmmm, I was just on Dave Hill's site trying to figure out how he does it....

But your image is really quite nice and doesn't look over sharpened to me. As Paul mentioned, the darker BG shows a bit of noise.

[Meaty0]

ok thanks!

after looking at dave hill's website for a few minutes, my photo is seeming less than impressive right now haha...


Dave Hill's images are truly impressive, but that's more Photoshop than photography. If it serves to make you try harder, then it's good, but don't worry about what other people are doing...worry about what YOU are doing. EDIT: If you want to learn about DH's style of imagery, there's a good book about it titled "Advanced Photoshop CS3 Trickery and FX" by Stephen Burns. Well worth reading.

[tonydee]

A bit too much sharpening for me - got that speckled look. Also seems a bit over-bright, but then I know my monitor's quite bright to begin with. Makes the whole thing look very flat. I assume you used a flash? Maybe want to soften it a bit? I'm just guessing.... Anyway, great detail and texture. Cheers, Tony

[CharlieD]

i see. thanks for the comments.

ill see about fixing that noise.
thanks for the tip about the book. do you think i should upgrade from cs2 to cs3?
i used my on camera flash. im getting some flashes for christmas...i cant wait to try all the strobist stuff...

[Titus213]

I upgraded to CS3 after a short period with CS2 and never regretted it. It's really quite a nice piece of software. Is it worth the upgrade cost? Yeah, I think it is.

[c71clark]

Give Smart Sharpen a shot. You can tell it to sharpen shadows less.