On Jul 28, 8:54 pm, Rita ? Berkowitz <ritaberk2O04 @aol.com> wrote:

I admit that I do not have a trained eye for photoshop touch-ups,
unless it's very obvious, than I couldn't spot it.  When I give
comments on Bret's work it's honest.  I admit I get too gushy, but
that's just me.  I see other people's work as well and comment on them
accordingly, but to me they do not compare to Bret's work.  I like
Bret, he's a good friend.  But I honestly believe he is  the best
nature and wildlife photographer.  I have yet to see a pic of Bret's
that was bad.  When it comes to hummingbirds, Eric Miller is tops.
Whether you or anyone else on this NG think anything else, is your
problem.  I just don't care anymore.
Helen

LOL!!

LOL!  Remember we talked about "targeted audience" before?  This is all you
get.  Maybe a troll, but I got you figured out and it really pisses you off.
And yet you have not been able to match the beautiful bokeh of the old Noct
with those third rate L lenses you use.  I'm glad you liked the
yellow-throated warbler.  It really must suck knowing you are using garbage
for equipment and can't get it right in-camera so you have to cheat in
Photoshop.

Rita

You're right you don't, but you know you have a burning desire to do so.

Thank you.  First off, due to my limited bandwidth I'll post an unaltered
1024 and a cropped version of your supposed "unaltered" RAW file (I will
remove tomorrow morning).  Secondly, what I can see from the image you
posted you did a severe crop as I suspected you did.  It looks like you did
a drastic noise reduction scheme that makes this image look like viewing on
a monitor with only 16-colors.  You didn't need to reduce the noise.  Pixel
for pixel I would have cropped as you did and not apply any post as it
really wasn't needed.  You f.cked this image up in Photoshop.  My unaltered
1024 version looks better at 200% than the crap you posted on pbase.  Do
yourself a favor and go lightly on the Photoshop since it detracts from a
good image.

My 1024

<http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2007/pics/bret.jpg>

Here's the unaltered cropped version fairly close in size to yours.  Even
with the noise and lack of adjustment it looks more natural.

<http://www.geocities.com/ritaberk2007/pics/bret_cropped.jpg>

Your overprocessed plastic looking pile of crap.

<http://www.pbase.com/bret/image/82972561/original>

Enjoy!

Rita

The other one looked more smeary from noise reduction but here's my
quick stab at analyzing it: http://edgehill.net/temp/bret
The first one is yours, the third was my attempt to match (too much
shadows, wrong WB with CS1 max noise reduction, much increased
contrast), the middle one is default ACR settings, both of my versions
were reduced 71% with USM radius 0.3 & 150%

My attempt still has significantly more noise, the default still has a
bit more detail. I know you sometimes use a technique that I sometimes
use: 2 layers, one noise reduced & mask out the detailed part to give a
smooth as butter background, I can see the noise around the lower
whiskers where I suspect you used this technique.

Overall your version looks real good, I wasn't able to easily match it!
Consider it a compliment that I went to the trouble. Thanks for the
opportunity to examine it.

You can click my versions for un-resharpened full pixel crops or go
here: http://edgehill.net/temp/bret/crop to compare.