Oh, deer! Can this photo be saved?

[slejhamer]

Here's what happened:

It was 7am Wednesday morning, and I was on my way out the door to head for work. Glancing out a window by the door, I saw a buck standing in the front yard, chomping on the weeds. (Happens frequently when you live in the deep woods.)

Ran downstairs to grab the G1, fired it up and took a few shots, but the buck was too far away for me to zoom in as much as I wanted. So I did the unthinkable and switched to jpeg mode and turned on 2x digital zoom.

By then, another 5 or 6 deer had arrived, and the front yard had become a garden salad party. Took about 30 shots, but none were good.

The issues:

1. Horrible lighting in my deeply shaded yard, and the few rays of sun hitting the turf are overblown. Generally speaking the pictures were way underexposed and I had to really open them up in PS.

2. I was shooting through two panes of glass. Would that have caused problems?

3. Digital zoom. I know, I know... but they were so far away. (A good 75 feet from the house.)

4. I noticed a lot of noise in the red channel. I despeckled in PS, but you can only do so much.

5. Colors, esp. on the deer, look splotchy. I tried a color grain smoothing action in PS but it didn't seem to help.

6. Contrast was very poor, so I played with curves and then sharpened.

Did I do all I can do, or are there other ways to further improve this image? Your thoughts greatly appreciated.


http://members.cox.net/mschlesinger/images/n_ohdeer.jpg.jpg

[philgabe]

Mitch:

I think that the photo you posted doesn't need to be "saved". It's pretty good as it is, I mean getting the shot is more important than missing the "perfect" shot. It's not like you had plenty of time to play around.

Maybe to improve in PS I would work the blue channel. The overall color temperature of the photo is a little cold. So maybe balance the color a little. I also think that applying gaussian blur in the blue channel may help with alleviating the noise.

These are just a few quick suggestions...but I'd be happy to have a deer salad party in my backyard and get it on film/sensor.

Philippe

[Conk]

I have a feeling that you'll get the opportunity again.
I still think it's agreat shot even a little fuzzy. The buck in the foreground looks almost 3-D.

[cgesteland]

Yeah, Mitch. Wouldn't beat yourself up about it. Looks great to me. Good catch! Next time leave your G1 where you can get to it faster. :)

[Leighow]

MITCH

This is simply wonderful. Heck, I HAVE NEVER seen a rabbit -- yet alone three deer in the morning quiet against shafts of enhancing sunlight. What luck !

But Phil is your close cousin on this shot having posted a superb image of kids feeding another beautiful deer.

If you make progess on these color temperatures suggestions, please give us all a lesson. Shhhh ... there is a Red Cardinal at the cedar hedge...got to go!

HOWIE (OTTAWA, CANADA)

[maple]

Wow Mitch! You have such beautiful guests at your green grass potluck! I really wouldn't worry about that shot, it captured the moment, and that's what's important.

I guess I must be missing out lots living in downtown, downtown Montreal... only "animal" I see is this really huge and ugly spider in between two layers of windows. When I shine at it with a torch, he stares back with his big beady, ugly eyes that just give me double creeps. I went to the bureau and asked them to bring in the exterminator, the lady told me in jest, "But sir, we did say that no pets are allowed!" But the cool spider guys did come friday last, phew.

By the way, before I forget again, I just want you to know that I absolutely adore the picture of "Daddy and Maddie" in your gallery. I don't know why it speaks to me, maybe its the way Daddy looks onto his little precious bundle with that quiet satisfaction which can only be love. The blurred-out effect (what's it called?) can't be any more appropriately applied.

[slejhamer]

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions!

Philippe, as I look at the image now I certainly see the cold blue cast. My weak defense is "it really sorta looks like that in the early morning shadows..." But I think that the color can be a distraction, so I will warm it up in PS before I go to print. Thanks for the observation.

By the way, I re-ran my color-grain smoothing action in "heavy" mode and it removed the channel noise quite nicely. Seems to work more or less the same way as your gaussian blur technique, but with tighter control. Hurrah!

philgabe wrote:
I'd be happy to have a deer salad party in my backyard and get it on film/sensor.

When they jump your fence to eat your blooming azaleas, day lilies and hostas, you may wish you had something to shoot them with besides a camera... just kidding. Sorta.

[slejhamer]

leighow wrote:
If you make progess on these color temperatures suggestions, please give us all a lesson.

Howie,
I tried it this way: I set up an adjustment layer for levels, then brought down the blue gamma. Blue midtones shifted toward yellow, warming the image. Did the same to a lesser extent with the blue shadow level, too, then slightly boosted the red gamma. Nice and toasty warm, now. Sharpened a tad more, too, which increased contrast ever-so-slightly.

It may have been simpler to just desaturate blue (and cyan) in the hue/saturation settings, but why use the simple hand tool when you've paid for the more sophisticated power tool? :)

Hope you got the cardinal!

[slejhamer]

maple wrote:
The blurred-out effect (what's it called?)

Maple,

It's a freeware soft-focus action that I got here:
http://freespace.virgin.net/nick.thomas3/web_pages/technical%208.htm

The action sets up two layers, one for blurring in "lighten" mode, one for blurring in "darken" mode. You control the blur level and the opacity, so it's very flexible.

The big trick (learned elsewhere) was to first set up a radial gradient mask in quick-mask mode, so that the faces didn't soften as much as the rest. Once I had the mask in place I ran the soft-focus action. Then, with the mask still in place, I went one step further and hit the standard PS diffusion filter effect very lightly with zero grain.

It was less work than it sounds. :)

P.S. I have to give full credit to my wife for taking that photo in the first place!

P.P.S. Not sure why, but that image didn't print well at Ofoto. I will try it at home on the Epson and see if I get a better result.

Cheers,