Judy, Scrolling through the pictures made it difficult to see the differences so I opened two explorer tabs, and would center one of the images in each. That way I could see the differences more easily as they pop in or out of the photo as I click on each tab. Overall, I like Coot 1 and 2 the best. I especially like the smoothness/lightness of the water on Coot 1 compared to the rest. I like that the feathers seemed smoothed down in 1 also--makes the bird look very sleek. However, Coot 2 feathers stand out more. The bird looks a little more disheveled but the greater tone/contrast in the feathers is more visually interesting. I guess the artist in me likes 1 and the photographer in me likes 2. I also like the dodged eye so that the red is brighter. Coot 2 eye is the most beautiful to me. Like you said, there is very little difference between 3 and 4, and when I compared them to 1 and 2, I was still drawn to 1 and 2. Don't know why. I wasn't distracted by the detail in the rocks because it is separate from the bird. I like Coot 2 rock best for color, tone range/contrast. In the end though, all are good edits on their own. Thanks for your comments on my edit. I had no idea if the feathers were supposed to be black or brown so I'm glad that you noticed mine was too black. Guess I will have to save up the coins for a calibrator too :) Kristen On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 11:22 PM, Judy Howle <howle@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > http://southern-exposures.net/page/coots.htm**** > > ** ** > > Coot 1 – In Lightroom 3 I had the following settings: exposure + 20, fill > light 10, recovery 9, contrast 50, clarity 26, vibrance 25, Sharpening 35 > with masking set to 20 to protect the water, noise reduction 20.**** > > ** ** > > In Photoshop I used a slight curves adjustment to darken the lightest > feathers. I dodged the eye at 35% opacity to lighten it a little. I used > hue/sat to + 14. I used Smart Sharpen at 80 amt and 1 pixel radius. Images > are 1000 pixels in height to show details. (I think all images for > evaluation should be at least 800 pixels high if vertical to see any > details.)**** > > ** ** > > Coot 2 – I used Nik Color Efex 4 Tonal Contrast on the converted image > before the sharpening at half of the default settings, as recommended by > Arthur Morris, and slid the whites slider up a bit to protect the beak. I > chose to brush on the filter just to the coot and rocks to keep the water > less contrasty and detailed.(Maybe I should have left it off the rocks?) > Then I applied Smart Sharpen.**** > > ** ** > > Coot 3 – I used Topaz Adjust and brushed off the effects on the water > inside the plugin. Applied Smart Sharpen. **** > > ** ** > > Coot 4 – I selected the coot and rocks with the Quick Selection tool and > put that on layer. Then I ran Noiseware on the background image to further > remove noise, and I ran Topaz Adjust on the bird/rocks selection and then > used Smart Sharpen on it and flattened the image. Not much difference from > Coot 3 but the noise is a little less. I don’t normally go to this extreme > as the noise isn’t usually too bad after raw conversion. I also have > Noiseware and Topaz DeNoise but that does take some detail out of the > feathers if one looks close on a larger image like these. I think I used > Noiseware on the whole image of Coot 4 as the Tonal Contrast filter made it > show up more.**** > > ** ** > > Feel free to comment on what you like or don’t like or suggestions.**** > > ** ** > > Judy Howle**** > > ** ** > > Southern Exposures**** > > http://southernexposure.zenfolio.com**** > > ** ** > > Digital Photography Class; Resources for Photographers**** > > http://digitalphotographyclass.net**** > > ** ** > > ** ** >