Asian Short Claw Otter

[Parry]

Well it's a captive otter at a local wild life reserve, and boy are they fast....
it says ask a question, i have two...

i touched up the colours slightly, but think it might need a little more, any one agree...
also - i thought about a portrait crop, yay/nay?



Exif
Cam : Canon 5d mk ii
Shutter : 1/250
F-stop : f/5.6
Focal : 400mm

1024x683 Size

[Jim Poor]

I think yes on the portrait crop.

On the color, there is a bit of an overly warm, pinkish cast to it.

Nice pose, but I would prefer either more depth of field or for the focus to be more on the eyes instead of forward of them.

At that focal length, a bit more shutter speed would be nice.

You have a dust bunny just to the viewer's left of the subject's "elbow."

[Chip]

I agree that a portrait crop would help.

Can't comment on the colors - I'm on a laptop with a quirky monitor.

[PrimeTime]

[QUOTE=Parry;901491]Well it's a captive otter at a local wild life reserve, and boy are they fast....
it says ask a question, i have two...

i touched up the colours slightly, but think it might need a little more, any one agree...
also - i thought about a portrait crop, yay/nay?


It looks like you decomposed to LAB to add some saturation to it. If it were my photo, i would only add it to the otter and not the background. A less vibrant background will bring more attention to the otter. Maybe even desaturate the background a little. A touch of desaturation on the pink areas wouldn't hurt either.

I say yay on the portrait crop.

A mild vignette around the otter can add some focus as well.
A slick way of doing this is to select the area you don't want vignetted(around the otters head and front legs), with the free select tool. Click on quick mask>gaussian blur around 75-150(depends on image)>click off quick mask> add layer mask (selection)>Deslect the selection> set layer to multiply> adjust opacity to the amount of vignette you like. If you move the opacity down to around 30%, you can't hardly tell it's vignetted, but it still adds alot of focus to the subject.

One other thing that might help is some small scale contrast................unsharp mask set to around radius 30 and amount .30 , and then adjust the opacity to liking.