Dan, nice looking frog, but if it were me I'd not put any more time into it. You already stated what weakens it: soft and noisy. So I'd just set it aside and get another shot, particularly under better lighting conditions.
Now if it was the last frog shot you were ever going to get, the last member of its species or something, then I would use multiple passes of unsharp filtering to increase the local contrast to make the frog appear sharper. On each pass you reduce the Radius and increase the Amount slider. Then I'd use a noise reduction plugin to reduce the artifacting that running many unsharp filter passes will create. The setting values need trial and error, and it could take hours of experimenting to get right. I'vd done it as a learning exercise and also to rescue a shot of a deceased pet (oof eyes in particular). If it was an environmental shot that included more interesting elements, then the issues with the frog wouldn't be so important and you could work on the overall shot to improve it. Can you mount a flash in an umbrella or softbox and have it ready to setup outside quickly? Even an LED flashlight would be an improvement. On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Daniel J. Matyola <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks, Frank. > > I like the photo, but is it far from what I want it to be. I posted > it here for comments, so I could get some ideas of how to make it > stronger before I put a lot more time into it. > > There are a few things about the image that make it hard to work with: > > It was taken early in the4 morning. The frog was in the shade. The > frog is under several inches of water in my pool. Since the pool > filter was off all night, there are a lot of bits of pollen, dust and > hair on the surface of the water, that detract a bit from the enlarged > image. Therefore, the ISO is extremely high, and the focus is not > quite sharp enough. > > I had to play around a lot in PS with levels and contrast to make it > even slightly presentable. I intend to start all over again, perhaps > in LR4. > > BTW, the background is one of the steps into the pool. It is > patterned and a bit rough, in order to make it less of a slipping > hazard. > > Thanks again for your helpful comments. > > Dan Matyola > http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola > > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 8:30 AM, [email protected] > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Very cool! What surface is it walking on? Almost looks like a mattress or >> something? Whatever it is I think it really adds to the photo - not so >> strong as to distract but visible enough to be a subtle yet interesting >> element. >> >> Very good photo but two little nits: Might crop a bit off the top and an >> even tinier bit off the left to get the frog a bit more off-centre and make >> the photo a bit more dynamic. >> >> And I find the photo a bit dark, but since I am looking at it on my android >> you may take this criticism as worth a grain of salt. >> >> All in all, though, a wonderful photo! >> >> cheers, >> frank >> >> "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." -- >> Christopher Hitchens >> >> --- Original Message --- >> >> From: "Daniel J. Matyola" <[email protected]> >> Sent: September 27, 2012 9/27/12 >> To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <[email protected]> >> Subject: PESO: Frog >> >> http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=16474954 >> >> Comments are invited. >> >> Dan Matyola >> http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
