Otter B&W (and colour now)

[sue]

http://suecharlton.co.uk/photoblog/images/20070517102213_ottsat.jpg
The colour of this has some distractingly bright grass on it so have tried it in black and white as you can see. This was taken at Knowsley recently. Please let me know if you think this works or not as I cant make up my mind, and interested to know what others think to it. Any ideas for improvement also welcome.

More... (http://suecharlton.co.uk/photoblog/index.php?showimage=91)

[oldgit]

.. urm not really..
looks a bit like the poor fella has been dropped in a tin of whitewash and left to dry on some painted straw.
... lotsa detail lost :shrug:

I guess you are trying to recover from blown highlights?
- If you took it in RAW then drag the exposure slider down and you might get some of the detail back. It's surprising how much detail there is stored in the white bits.
- If you only have the JPG then ... urm ... yr doomed. It stores only a fraction of the RAW data.

[sue]

Thank you, dont remember it been particually blown, but will go back and have another look, and it was taken in RAW so might be able to do better.

[sue]

Well here is the orignal which I have done auto tone in lightroom, then auto curves in photoshop. I find the grass very distracting in this image.

http://www.suecharlton.co.uk/images/otre.jpg

[Dark Star]

I think the colour works better Sue - the grass enhances the shot in my humble opinon! Almost leads my eye to the otter (not that it needs any help really :-) )

[Jucklebutt]

I also think the colour is better, lovely shot :thumbs: :)

[matty]

have you tried a duo-tone filter on it?

[h.r.ford]

I think the colour is better and I think the B&W if anything drew more attention to the grass. If you really find the grass a distraction try making a seperate layer adding a little gaussian blur then make a mask and only paint over the non otter sections so you see the otter sharp but the grass blurred. But really I don't mind the grass.

[sue]

matty how do i do that?

[Janice]

in lightroom sue, there is a split tone duberry down the right hand side of the develop module ask that husband of yours to show you ;)