Raw conversion challenge

Lets try another one.

Show me what You get get out og this raw image. Cropping, level, exposure etc.
What I would like to see is nice sky and some details on the hawk.

For PS CS2 users please also tell me the steps to get to the produced result.

Download raw image here.

Tommy,

Here's what I came up with. I'm using CS2, so I'll try to explain what I did.

First I started out with two different conversions using ACR, one for the sky and one for the bird. They're both pretty extreme and there are probably better settings, but I didn't play around with them too much:

For the bird:
Exposure: +1.20
Shadows: 5
Brightness: 50
Contrast: -50
Saturation: 0

For the sky:
Exposure: +0.80
Shadows: 100
Brightness: 50
Contrast: +100
Saturation: +11

I copied both of these into one document in photoshop with the sky conversion as the background and the bird as a layer on top. I copied the sky layer and used threshold to come up with a rough layer mask for the bird layer. I cleaned up the edges of this using a 3px soft brush on the layer mask. I sharpened the bird layer using Smart Sharpen set at 90% with a 0.8 radius.

To take care of the CA around the edges of the bird, I copied the bird layer and used hue/saturation to desaturate the blues and magentas until the CA wasn't really noticeable. I hid this layer, duped the bird again and used the find edges and gaussian blur filters to make a layer mask for the desaturated layer. Again, I cleaned up this mask with a 3px soft brush.

The result isn't perfect, the edges could definitely use more work, but this is what I was able to do in 15 or 20 minutes of tinkering.

[Edit]
I forgot to mention this, though it's pretty obvious: I cropped the shot to make the bird more prominent.

That's a great capture of a bird in flight. Makes me think I should go get that 85mm.

chap

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Well my first try Using PS CS2

1. Imported the RAW image with Flourescent white balance
2. Cropped in on the bird.
3. Used the clone tool to take away the strap
4. Used the magic wand to select the bird and adjusted the RGB levels values : 0 - 1.00 - 255

this is the first time I've done something like this so please comment

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I got a bit carried away here... sorry.

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Petra that is amazing! Excellent job fixing color and recovering lost detail.
Your artistic license pays off too

Angel.. you may be looking at a monitor calibration problem? it's very very blue... and details are lost due to it's overall darkeness. Though on the whole this was a good first try.

Cahp.. your colors are spot on as well.. very nice. I think the image begs for a different crop though.

After seeing Cyberpet's and chap's work I wouldn't even want to try. Wow defeat before stepping into the ring.

I did this on an LCD, so I'll have to check my work in the AM on my CRT at the office.

... yeah.. I don't think I'll give this one a try after all.. I wouldn't want to make you all look bad...

That's really really really really good Phil!

Phil, Thats a very remarkable recovery. I bow to your photoshop abilities!!

I never cease to be amased by what can be done in photoshop. Fantastic work all, I'm not even going to try this one!

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
... yeah.. I don't think I'll give this one a try after all.. I wouldn't want to make you all look bad...

Yeah, cos that's the real reason!

This forum needs new ranking Like PS Masters!!!

I'll second that!

Phil, could you tell us what you did?

My effort.

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Great efforts everybody. Its really great to see what skilled photoshoppers can get out of a rather poor raw capture. (Hawk almost out of frame, not very sharp etc.)

Chap, looks great. Though I had a different crop in mind.
Angel, as CDS mention it looks a bit too blue on my screen too. Otherwise great frist time attempt.
Petra, looks great and very creative rotating the hawk. It works when You don't know the full story so for me its not what I would do but great work.
Nikolas, also great work but the same comment about rotating.

Phil, what can I say. That is really great. I think Yours is the best so far.