While we were driving from camp to the river crossing location, we came across an area where wildebeest were moving in a column, for as far and the eye could see in either direction. I tried creating a stitched panorama, but even that only provides a hint of the overwhelming number of animals on the plains.
This big bull elephant was the last animal I saw before heading home from my last safari adventure. We came across him on our way back to camp for a quick breakfast before our flight out. He was moving swiftly along the road, and in musth as well, so we stayed well out of his way. He stopped briefly to check us out from afar, grabbed a small trunkful of sand from the road and let it fly before carrying on his way. The way the light was falling, the sand almost makes it look like he is surrounded by confetti.
Bull elephant on the move. South Africa, May 2017. 1/800 sec, f6.3, ISO 560. Converted to black and white using On1 Photo Raw.
I’ve had a lot going on recently on the editing side for my images and have been experimenting with new workflows and combinations of software. I’ve recently made the move from Lightroom over to On1 Photo Raw, and while it is a big learning curve, I am definitely enjoying the process. I had downloaded the trial of On1 after reading reviews that suggested it might be a better option than Lightroom for Fuji X raw files (I’m in the process of making the jump from Nikon to Fuji; new camera and new software all at once). What impressed me the most with the On1 software, and the reason I took the plunge with it, was I opened up some raw files both from my Nikon cameras and my Panasonic camera, and found they appeared much sharper just from the initial work of the raw processing engine, without me doing anything to the files.
I had flagged this photo to work on, and it is definitely a challenging image. It was shot at 1/250sec, f5.6, ISO 25,600 at 5:15 in the evening and the lion cub was in a deep, heavily shaded thicket. Whether the steps I took are the ones I would do again, I don’t know, but I am pleased with the end result for this one.
The starting point.
I knew I wanted to use Topaz Denoise for my noise reduction, so I moved the image from On1 Photo Raw into Photoshop to do my editing work. Other than the initial raw processing with lens corrections, I didn’t do any editing work on this image in On1 Photo Raw.
I ran Topaz Denoise 6 as a filter from Photoshop, and selected the Nikon D800 ISO 25600 preset, as they don’t have presets for the D600 or D610, and I found the results for the D800 gave me the best image quality.
Image at 200% as shot, to show the noise.Image at 200% after running Denoise 6.Full image after running Topaz Denoise6.
After Denoise was complete, I could have gone back into On1 to do further work on the image, but I decided to stay within Photoshop and instead played around with the new Topaz Studio that I downloaded earlier this week (I’ve been using the Topaz suite for some time as filters from Photoshop, but they haven’t been go-to’s in my workflow).
In Topaz Studio, I selected the preset “Light sharpen contrast under the basic panel as my starting point. I adjusted the colour temperature slightly and added a subtle vignette to the image.
Sharpening was my final step, which is a little tricky when you have an image that is really noisy. I stayed within Topaz Studio and went to Detail to see what could be done.
Using Topaz Detail within Studio, I selected the micro contrast enhancement 1 preset to add a bit of sharpening to the image, without adding back a lot of the noise I got rid of in step one.The final result.
There are dozens of different ways to work on this image. I’m sure I could have done everything in Photoshop, Lightroom, On1 Photo Raw or Topaz Studio, or using a combinations of plugins like MacPhun’s Intensify and Focus or the GoogleNik filters. This was just the way I decided to work on this image, as I look to see how the new resources I have work and how to make them work together. Right now, I am doing my raw processing in On1 and using Photoshop when I want to use other filters and plugins, but I can’t say I have any real sort of workflow using these new tools. It’s all a work in progress 🙂
Let me know if you like the Before and After posts; I’ve done one previously also working on a seriously noisy image. You can find that here if you are interested (and I must say, looking back at that image, the workflow I used here yielded much better results!)
Since I started working from home 2 years ago, I have posted quite a few images taken from my office window. There are times when it is difficult not to be distracted by the deer wandering through the yard, the birds congregating at the feeders in the winter, or a rare visit by the fox or bear. The photo challenge for this week is to either feature images that include the framing of a window, or taken from a window.
I hope you enjoy these images taken from my office window.
I have a ground level window, and one of the deer spotted me with my camera and was very intrigued, and kept coming closer to get a better look.Mama with one of the youngsters.When it was very hot and dry in the summer, I made sure there was a small dish of water out for any birds or animals that needed a drink. The mama deer makes use of that on a soggy day.Coming back for a second look.This young deer was very aware of me watching, and very curious.
Seeing a leopard in a tree was a dream safari experience for me; I hoped that one day it would happen, but knowing the bush, I knew there was never a guarantee. I saw my first leopard in a tree in the Okavango Delta in 2015. And that trip, I actually had 3 different leopard in a tree sightings. This past trip, I had just as many. It doesn’t get old though! Every leopard sighting is special, and seeing them up in a tree, in command of their environment, is always a magical experience.
On watch. A leopard surveys his domain in the Okavango Delta. April 2017.
We were lucky enough to spend about an hour with this breeding herd in the Namibian Desert. They spent time grazing on devil’s thorn and then went down into the riverbed for a drink and a mud bath. After that, they were off, and we headed back to camp for breakfast.
Elephants in the Hoanib river bed. Namibia, April 2017.
Today and every day, let’s keep these magnificent creatures safe. There are so many dedicated people working to combat poaching; I do hold hope that the tide will shift and people will curb the demand for rhino horn.
