Otters

[Stormdancing]

http://heartsfire.smugmug.com/photos/113561997-L.jpg

http://heartsfire.smugmug.com/photos/113562084-L.jpg


C&C Welcomed.

[Dee]

They looks so "fuzzy."

Where did you photograph them?

[Stormdancing]

They looks so "fuzzy."

Where did you photograph them?

Fuzzy? OOF fuzzy or cute fuzzy?
They are our official mascots for the Otters AAA Baseball Team.
They are in an open outdoor pool at the zoo.

[Harryb]

Nice shots, you handled a difficult expsoure well. :thumb

[Stormdancing]

Nice shots, you handled a difficult expsoure well. :thumb
Thanks Harry!
And through a plexigass shield to top it off. :wink

[Dee]

Fuzzy? OOF fuzzy or cute fuzzy?
They are our official mascots for the Otters AAA Baseball Team.
They are in an open outdoor pool at the zoo.

See what happens when one doesn't "do" sports... I would have known then that these were team mascots at a game, right? :rofl :rofl :rofl

There does appear to be a slight haze, but using an unsharp mask of 20, 70, 0 should clear that right up in photoshop... :-)

[prlf]

love otters and really enjoyed seeing yours. this is my first time with this and i will try to add some of my photos if i can. thanks for yours
PRLF

[Stormdancing]

Thanks Dee. I already used quite a steep USM on these shots and it did clear some of the haze. Hate to go any farther with it and oversharpen.

Thanks PFLR, can't wait to see some of your shots.

Oh and Harry..........
This I promised to you. This is about as close as I will get to posting pictures of Squ.... Tree Rats in your forum:rofl

[Dick on Aruba]

Great pics! I think they would benefit from a black-point-adjustment.

Thanks for sharing.

Dick.

PS
I hope you don't mind this sample of your first picture with a black-point adjustment in Photo Shop (Black eye-dropper):

http://arubaphoto.smugmug.com/photos/113803119-M.jpg

[Stormdancing]

Thanks Dick.

I was all over the place with the color balance on these shots. The AWB came out with them looking a steely blue. I tried the dropper - both black and white and still they just didn't look like they did IRL. I admit your adjustments does give the picture more pop, but they were actually a chestnut brown color with slightly yellowed chest so that is what I tried to duplicate with my color adjustment.

And no I don't mind someone showing me ways to improve my pics - be it in Photoshop or my shooting techniques.:lust

[Dee]

All I did was unsharp mask, 20, 70, and 0. It doesn't make sharpening halos at all. It just clears the haze a little bit. I didn't mess with anything else. Hope you don't mind.

Dee

[Stormdancing]

All I did was unsharp mask, 20, 70, and 0. It doesn't make sharpening halos at all. It just clears the haze a little bit. I didn't mess with anything else. Hope you don't mind.

Dee
WOW it looks great. I will have to try that and reprocess the RAW file.
And no I don't mind anyone showing me how to better my work with either Photoshop or advising me on technique. I guess I should add that to my sig.

[Dee]

WOW it looks great. I will have to try that and reprocess the RAW file.
And no I don't mind anyone showing me how to better my work with either Photoshop or advising me on technique. I guess I should add that to my sig.

I don't use it for every photo. Living near the coast we get a lot of haze in the air. We call it salt haze and can sit in our car and watch it being blown in from the waves toward land. Everything looks like there's a film over it. That unsharp mask usually does the trick and helps make the photo pop without a lot of other tricks.

Don't get me wrong, I use shadow/highlight (be careful with that one), curves (again be careful) and used to use levels.

Sometimes I'll go to LAB and unsharp mask (the normal way) on the L channel. I haven't tried this extreme unsharp mask in LAB yet.

The beauty and frustration of photoshop is that there are so many different ways to accomplish the same effect it seems.

I also use a hue/saturation layer with the Sony cameras to get rid of purple fringe and green fringe when I have to.

[dbaker1221]

great shot!

[mgd_harvey]

Nice shots!

I love otters - such lovely animals :D

Thanks for sharing.

[jsedlak]

I love otters too! Wonderful pictures.

[Stormdancing]

I love otters too! Wonderful pictures.

Thanks everyone. They are soooo cute. These two are hams also.
They are the mascots of our AAA ball team the Evansville Otters.
They are homed at Mesker Park Zoo (http://www.meskerparkzoo.com/). Their outdoor pen includes a large pool with a glass tunnel under it where the kids can get inside and watch. They really play up to the kids. I wish I could get in there. LOL They also have a large playground area and really put on a show there also. That area is fenced in instead of the plexiglass viewing area of the pool, so shots are not so easy to get.