A story about making a photo: Editing tips

[johnrmoyer]

I also put this story at https://www.rsok.com/~jrm/eagle.html

It was challenging to make this photo. I was standing in the blind at at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, United States.

The water level was very low. As a result, the birds were very far from the blind. But, the fish were easy for an eagle to see in the shallow water. There were many, many flying insects between the camera and the eagle. The out of focus insects are not visible in the photo except for the larger ones at about the same distance from the camera as the eagle. Yet the large number of insects refract the light and change the color of the light. The refraction distorts the image slightly.

When editing the photo, I set the white balance to "daylight" even though the sunrise light had more red because 5200K seemed to me to make the photo looked like I remembered the scene. I estimate the distance to the eagle from my camera to be between 200 and 400 meters. (The focus distance reported by the camera includes assumptions about print size and viewing distance as the standard requires and will differ from viewing on a screen.)

I used the free to download Canon DPP software to process the CR3 raw file, but sometimes I use rawtherapee free software and in the past have used darktable. The Apple photos.app included with macOS also works, but I seldon use it. The table below the photo of an eagle catching a fish contains camera settings, things measured by the camera, and a list of all of my edits. When one does "save a recipe" to save a dr4 file from Canon DPP, the edits may be played back in DPP software or listed using the exiftool program. I also used exiftool to list the camera settings and measurements made by the camera.

As a final step to downsize the photo for my web server, I use the graphicsmagick program.

gm convert -verbose IMG_1946c.JPG -resize "60%" -unsharp 0x1 -mattecolor black \
 -frame 16x16 -font helvetica -fill white -font \
 '/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf' -draw "text 4,1228 \
 'Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is catching a fish at sunrise at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, United States on October 22, 2024, Copyright http://www.r$
 -define 'jpeg:dct-method=float,jpeg:optimize-coding=true' -interlace line \
 -quality 97 2024oct22_eagle_IMG_1946c.jpg

I nearly always do another unsharp mask after scaling a digital image to a different size.

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is catching a fish at sunrise at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, United States on October 22, 2024

Camera Model Name	Canon EOS R5
Lens Model	EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM +2x III
Focal Length	800.0 mm
Exposure Time	1/400
ISO	800
F Number	11.0
Camera Temperature	35 C
Measured EV	12.75
Measured EV 2	25.5
Focus Distance Upper	inf
Focus Distance Lower	81.91 m
Artist	John Moyer
File:Other	File Name	IMG_1946.CR3
EXIF:Camera	Exposure Mode	Auto
EXIF:Camera	Scene Capture Type	Standard
EXIF:Time	Date/Time Original	2024:10:22 08:02:34
EXIF:Time	Offset Time Original	-05:00
EXIF:Time	Sub Sec Time Original	40
MakerNotes:Camera	Continuous Drive	Continuous, Low
MakerNotes:Camera	Focus Mode	AI Servo AF
MakerNotes:Camera	Record Mode	CR3+JPEG
MakerNotes:Camera	Canon Image Size	Large
MakerNotes:Camera	Easy Mode	Manual
MakerNotes:Camera	Camera ISO	Auto
MakerNotes:Camera	Metering Mode	Evaluative
MakerNotes:Camera	Focus Range	Auto
MakerNotes:Camera	Canon Exposure Mode	Aperture-priority AE
MakerNotes:Camera	Focus Continuous	Single
MakerNotes:Camera	Image Stabilization	On (2)
MakerNotes:Camera	AF Area Mode	Face + Tracking
MakerNotes:Camera	Num AF Points	1053
MakerNotes:Camera	Valid AF Points	1
MakerNotes:Camera	Safety Shift	Enable (ISO speed)
MakerNotes:Camera	Measured RGGB	600 1024 1024 489
MakerNotes:Camera	Color Space	sRGB
MakerNotes:Camera	Dual Pixel Raw	On
MakerNotes:Camera	AF Config Tool	Case 1
MakerNotes:Camera	AF Tracking Sensitivity	0
MakerNotes:Camera	AF Accel/Decel Tracking	0
MakerNotes:Camera	AF Point Switching	-1
MakerNotes:Camera	AI Servo First Image	Equal Priority
MakerNotes:Camera	AI Servo Second Image	Equal Priority
MakerNotes:Camera	One Shot AF Release	Focus Priority
MakerNotes:Camera	Subject To Detect	Animals
MakerNotes:Camera	Eye Detection	On
MakerNotes:Camera	Roll Angle	0.1
MakerNotes:Camera	Pitch Angle	-1.2
MakerNotes:Camera	WB RGGB Levels Measured	2001 1024 1024 1931
MakerNotes:Camera	Color Temp Measured	5162
MakerNotes:Image	Shutter Mode	Electronic First Curtain
MakerNotes:Image	Picture Style	Standard
MakerNotes:Image	Digital Gain	0
MakerNotes:Image	WB Shift AB	0
MakerNotes:Image	WB Shift GM	0
MakerNotes:Time	Time Zone	-05:00
MakerNotes:Time	Time Zone City	Chicago
MakerNotes:Time	Daylight Savings	On
MakerNotes:Time	Time Stamp	2024:10:22 08:02:34.40
File:Other	File Name	IMG_1946.dr4
CanonVRD:Image	Raw Brightness Adj	0.67
CanonVRD:Image	White Balance Adj	Daylight
CanonVRD:Image	WB Adj Color Temp	5200
CanonVRD:Image	WB Adj Magenta Green	0
CanonVRD:Image	WB Adj Blue Amber	0
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Linear	No
CanonVRD:Image	Picture Style	Shot Settings
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Strength	3
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Fineness	4
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Threshold	4
CanonVRD:Image	DLO Setting	50
CanonVRD:Image	DLO On	Yes
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Shadow	2
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Highlight	0
CanonVRD:Image	Picture Style	Shot Settings
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Strength	3
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Fineness	4
CanonVRD:Image	Unsharp Mask Threshold	4
CanonVRD:Image	DLO Setting	50
CanonVRD:Image	DLO On	Yes
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Shadow	2
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Highlight	0
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Black Point	+0.000
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma White Point	+0.000
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Mid Point	+0.000
CanonVRD:Image	Gamma Curve Output Range	0 16383
CanonVRD:Image	DPRAW Microadjust Back Front	-1
CanonVRD:Image	DPRAW Microadjust Strength	8
CanonVRD:Image	Crop X	2732
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Y	1587
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Width	3000
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Height	2000
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Rotation	0
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Angle	0
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Original Width	8192
CanonVRD:Image	Crop Original Height	5464

Same bird, same fish, same camera settings

Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) has caught a fish at sunrise at Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Alfalfa County, Oklahoma, United States on October 22, 2024

[wq9nsc]

Nice images John and thanks for sharing the story behind the photos!

Rodger