Buck Shot

[rutt]

This is a continuation of a Whipping Post tread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=24332).

I gave this image the full treatment and ended up here:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48756558-L.jpg

He still looks stuffed to me, but at least the color and contrast are plausible and not too flat.

What did I do?
In ACR: used the eye dropper on the snow to get it reasonably neutral
In ACR: linear curves (see the curves tab)
In ACR: moved the sliders to make sure there was no clipping:
http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48755461-M.jpg
Copied the green channel into a new layer and changed blending mode to luminosity.
http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48756186-M.jpg
Nudged the A curve a tiny bit toward the magenta to get the green out of the snow.
Used these curves (straight from Chapter 3 (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=18763) of the LAB book.)
http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48756191-S.jpghttp://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48755185-S.jpghttp://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48755517-S.jpg
Fiddled around with a layer mask and curves again to get a little blue out of the patch right below his eye.
USM sharpening with separate lighten/darken layers. (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=9739)

If it were mine, I'd consider a crop:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/48755747-L.jpg