I May Not Be Great in Photoshop, but I'm Darned Good (he said modestly ...)

Stuff

The morning started off slowly with the promise of lots of clouds but the blue sky and sun came too quickly. Rather than packing it in early, we stuck it out and had enjoyed some great flight photography with unexpectedly excellent results. I am in the process of learning a ton about the automatic Nikon AFA method … Will share here when I figger it out completely …

We snorkeled again at Radar Reef and for the second straight time I left my fins in the room 🙂 We had a productive afternoon with Brown Booby chicks are varying ages. And for the first time ever I used the tilting rear LCD and Live View to create some low angle images. With success.

It’s not too late to join me for one of the spoonbill IPTs; both are now almost full. Please e-mail if you would like to learn about the late registration discount.

The Streak

Today makes one hundred ninety-seven days in a row with a new educational blog post! This one took about 45 minutes to prepare. With all of my upcoming free time (or not …), the plan right now is to break the current record streak of 480 … Good health and good internet connections and my continuing insanity willing. I was glad to learn that Gary Meyer sold his Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM lens in near-mint condition along with a pair of like-new Series III TCs for the (unbelievable) record low BAA price of $3458.00.

Booking.Com

Several folks on the Spoonbill IPTs used the Booking.Com link below and got great rates and saved a handsome $25.00 in the process. If you too would like to give Booking.Com a shot, click here and to earn a $25 reward on your first booking. Thanks to the many who have already tried and used this great service.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of folks whom I see in the field, and on BPN, are–out of ignorance–using the wrong gear especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads… Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. Those questions might deal with systems, camera bodies, accessories, and/or lens choices and decisions.

This is the Photo Mechanic Screen Capture for Today’s Featured Image

the Photo Mechanic Screen Capture

OK, you are editing. You come to this one. It is way too dark. The bird is too far forward in the frame. And you clipped the top wing by not zooming out quite enough. Before scrolling down, do you keep this one or relegate it to the trash bin? As I put the optimized image near the bottom of the blog post, you will need to scroll down more than usual to see it.

Don’t Forget

You need to scroll down a ways to see the final image.

Help Support the Blog

Please help support my (stupendous) efforts here on the blog by remembering to click on the logo link above each time that you shop Amazon. That would be greatly appreciated. There is no problem using your Prime account; just click on the link and log into your Prime account. With love, artie

If In Doubt …

If in doubt about using the BAA B&H affiliate link correctly, you can always start your search by clicking here. Please note that the tracking is invisible. Web orders only. Please, however, remember to shoot me your receipt via e-mail.

Please Remember to use my Affiliate Links and to Visit the New BAA Online Store 🙂

To show your appreciation for my continuing efforts here, we ask, as always, that you get in the habit of using my B&H affiliate links on the right side of the blog for all of your photo and electronics purchases. Please check the availability of all photographic accessories in the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store, especially the Mongoose M3.6 tripod head, Wimberley lens plates, Delkin flash cards and accessories, and LensCoat stuff.

As always, we sell only what I have used, have tested, and can depend on. We will not sell you junk. We know what you need to make creating great images easy and fun. And please remember that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail.

I would of course appreciate your using our B&H affiliate links for all of your major gear, video, and electronic purchases. For the photographic stuff mentioned in the paragraph above, and for everything else in the new store, we, meaning BAA, would of course greatly appreciate your business. Here is a huge thank you to the many who have been using our links on a regular basis and those who will be visiting the New BIRDS AS ART Online Store as well.

This image was created on the morning of February 10 on Cayman Brac with the hand held Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR lens (at 320mm) and the blazingly fast professional digital camera body, the Nikon D5 DSLR camera body with dual XQD slots). ISO 1600. Matrix metering probably +1 1/3 stops off the gray sky: 1/1000 sec. at f/6.3 in Manual mode. AWB at 7:16am on a cloudy morning. Center Group (grp)/Shutter Button AF. Click on the image to enjoy a larger version. Brown Booby passing by in flight with stick for nest

The Optimized Image

I may not be great in Photoshop, but I’m darned good …

Just the usual stuff: ACR conversion, crop to a 2X3 vertical, expand Canvas with John Heado Content Aware Fill, re-build the wing tip using small Quick Masks as per APTATS, Eye Doctor work, my NIK 40/40 recipe, and a Contrast Mask on to quasi-sharpen the face.

D-5 and D-850 Dynamic Range

I continue to be impressed by the dynamic range of both of my Nikon bodies. You are able to rescue both over- and under-exposed images with ease with pretty much no ill effects. I will be talking about what I call small pixel noise with the D-850, and what I do to eliminate it in a future blog post.

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II) will teach you an efficient Mac or PC/Photo Mechanic/Photoshop workflow that will make it easy for you to make your images better in Photoshop (rather than worse). That true whether you convert your images in DPP 4 or ACR. See the blog post here to learn lots more and to read a free excerpt. You can order your copy from the BAA Online Store here, by sending a Paypal for $40 here, or by calling Jim or Jennifer weekdays at 863-692-0906 with your credit card in hand.

The BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II)

Your guessed it, everything mentioned above and tons more is covered in detail in the BIRDS AS ART Current Workflow e-Guide (Digital Basics II), an instructional PDF that is sent via e-mail. Learn more and check out the free excerpt in the blog post here. While the new e-Guide reflects my Macbook Pro/Photo Mechanic/DPP 4/Photoshop workflow, folks using a PC and/or BreezeBrowser will also benefit greatly by studying the material on DB II. Do note that you will find the RGB Curves Adjustment Color Balancing tutorial only in the new e-guide. Note: folks working on a PC and/or those who do not want to miss anything Photoshop may wish to purchase the original Digital Basics along with DB II while saving $15 by clicking here to buy the DB Bundle.

The two most recent and many of the older MP4 Photoshop Tutorial videos releases go hand and hand with the information in DB II):

• The Wingtip Repairs MP4 Video here.
• The MP4 Crow Cleanup Video here.

Folks who learn well by following along rather than by reading can check out the complete collection of MP 4 Photoshop Tutorial Videos by clicking here.

You can learn how and why I and other discerning Canon shooters convert nearly all of their Canon digital RAW files in DPP 4 using Canon Digital Photo Professional in the DPP 4 RAW conversion Guide here. Yes, I still have many Canon images to work on. 🙂 And you can learn advanced Quick Masking and advanced Layer Masking techniques in APTATS I & II. You can save $15 by purchasing the pair. Folks can learn sophisticated sharpening and (NeatImage) Noise Reduction techniques in the The Professional Post Processing Guide by Arash Hazeghi and yours truly.

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Typos

In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right :).