Well, that wasn’t a fair test of your editing skills, having to use Picasa on a Raw image ;-) I think you should just convert the Raw image and then edit the jpg in Nikon software if it has better tools. Your result was a bit flat i.e. lacked contrast from the fill light most likely, and it could have been sharpened more. I bumped up the blacks in levels to add contrast and dodged the eye to make it brighter and sharpened it. I attached the images. Judy Howle Southern Exposures http://southernexposure.zenfolio.com Digital Photography Class; Resources for Photographers http://digitalphotographyclass.net From: missbirdphotos-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:missbirdphotos-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Frank Hensley Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 7:42 AM To: missbirdphotos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [missbirdphotos] Re: Link to my coot image You may all laugh at this.. I don't know. So I opened it in... drumroll... Picasa! (laughter) and goofed around with it (fill lighting, color temperature, sharpen, crop). I don't use Picasa for editing either, but at least there isn't much of a learning curve! I have attached what I came up with. Mine is substantially lighter than Robert's version because I wanted to see the eye better and Picasa only allows fill lighting over the entire photo - not dodging and burning in specific areas. Of course, neither does Nikon View, which is what I normally use. I didn't think to simply use Picasa to create a jpg and then edit that jpg in Nikon View, until after I had already done the edit in Picasa. In NV I at least have a habitual workflow, even if the tools are somewhat limited. Maybe I'll try to "forget" how the finished product from Picasa looks, and work from a jpg in NV just to see how different things come out. -FRH
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Howle's Coot FRH.JPG
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Howle's Coot FRHjudy.jpg
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