Thank you for the class

[mikemeister_admin]

Nice work on the lion(cheetah) in a tree,Greg.GregM

[leeharper_admin]

This is my take on the lions...

When I opened the image I noticed that it was in ProPhoto RGB. I assigned sRGB to knock the cast back (Edit > Assign Profile...). Give it a try, it makes the cast far easier to handle.

I took the initial cast out with moves to the yellow and magenta channels in CMYK (in Photoshop rather than CM because on my PC the hue clocks don't function in CMYK). After that it's all tweaks really. I won't post my curves because they won't work (I was using a different definition of CMYK).

It's a nice image - you must have had a great time :)
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

test,test.Image with profile correction,thanks Lee.No sharpening or size change.GregM
Second image with sharpening and a bit more contrast.

[ggroess]

Lee,
Can you drive more color contrast into the yellows?  It just seems Mono-chromatic...

I took your image and I drove more yellow into it...It might need a new layer and a bit of opacity magic to make it look better...

Greg

[leeharper_admin]

Thanks for the save - I should have done the 24-hour test! I'd obviously been looking at the image for so long that simultaneous contrast was throwing me off. As I scrolled down this page this morning I was quite shocked by how flat the colour looked.

In keeping with the premise that the object(s) of our attention should appear more colourful than those things within the periphery of our vision, I masked the lion and cubs in the foreground, and applied Man from Mars through a L channel mask. I then boosted saturation globally just a bit.

It's better - but is it good enough?

Lee.

[imported_BoydMac]

This has been a very eye-opening experience.  Each suggestion has contained a number of valuable ideasand the variations in impact that the various final images has is revelaing.  Equally important is Greg's comment that he was not 100% sure of what my goals for the images were.  This is something that I think about much too little.  The lion shot was taken at Mala Mala in South Africa.  We left the camp just before sunrise and came across a pride of three lionesses and twelve cubs.  The lionesses had been out hunting, returned to the cubs, fed them, and were now relaxing.  Some cubs were playful, some still wanted to nurse, and others just wanted to cuddle up together or with their mother and sleep.  To my mind this shot caputres much of that.  It was also early morning with a warm sun and stong shadows.  Now I need to take that information, the techniques and suggestions that have been offered and try again.  Thank you all for helping me.

[ggroess]

Well that would be up to Boyd....

I think it looks much better....

Greg

[ggroess]

Boyd,
Now that you have told me the story i will try another version...I have a few ideas....

Thanks for the response..
Greg

[ggroess]

Ok...I took a darker look at this...The early morning sun and the slow shutter needed a bit more contrast in my mind...also the description from Boyd drove me to try to crop this aggressively so that the image was more intimate.  Mom and cubs only...The little guy off to the side just missed the family portrait I guess.

I used the color contrast technique from week 6 and darkened the L channel in LAB.
I cropped the image and burned the background down a bit...I then sharpened using Unsharp Mask.  .7, 150, 0.

thanks for sharing this image and I hope you have some great ideas for what you want to do with it going forward...

Greg

[imported_BoydMac]

Greg,

Thank you very much.  That sets a high bar.  One of the key things I hoped to learn from the course was how to eliminate color casts.  I think I have progressed a long way towards being able to do so.  This photo has driven home the point that one needs to know what the story or goal is.

Thankyou again for everything.