One more horse composite...

[Charles_cz]

Yes, as you can see I enjoy working with horses.. LOL

Here is another composite for critique.

I did print this one out (11x14) and it looks pretty good on paper as far as PP work goes.

Anything obvious out of order on this one?

Thanks for honest critique. Charles

[mistermonday]

Charles, this Pegasus is missing its wings. All four feet are floating so it looks like you dropped the creature on top of qa new bg but left him floating. The shadow looks disproportionately small.
Regards, Murray

[Charles_cz]

Hi Murray, actually this "Pegasus" was in fact in the air with all four hooves. I have made sure to transfer the original shadow rather then trying to re-create a new one.

The shadow looks disproportionately small to horse? How can you tell where the light source was? I don't question your judgment, just trying to see your point of view...

Thanks for your critique... Thanks Charles

[mistermonday]

OK, after a closer look I will retract the comment about the shadow. Because the horse has all hooves of the ground, with a sharp body outline, it looks a bit like it was lifted and placed onto the new bg. The grass beneath the horse and behind does not look like its been trodden upon and there's no typical dust cloud that a gallopping horse usually leaves. However the entire composite does look very nice and the horse does attract most of the viewer's focus, so unless people are really looking to see if the photo has been composited, they may not notice.
Regards, Murray

[LQQKER]

Damn, that's a good looking horse.

ln order to give an honest opinion about your work it would be nice to see the "before" image just to see what you've done. I do agree that the horse may seem sharper, the subject more contrasty than it should be and the depth of field seems a bit unusual "unless" it's running on a slight hill ridge. That said, I've seen unaltered images that can be questionable simply due to a variety of issues during the original shoot. So . . . long story made short. Unless the horse was placed running on the surface of the moon, it's difficult to determine how well you've done your composite. Myself, I'd like to see the original in order to critique your work.

[Tony W]

Hi Charles
Sorry, but I have to agree with Murray it does look a little like it has been lifted and dropped onto new BG. I have little idea of how a horse either cantors, runs, or gallops, however if all feet do leave the ground then some disturbance (flying grass and debris?) should follow maybe?

As LQQKER said it would be nice to look at both foreground and background images prior to compositing.

One thing that does bug me a little is the sharp DOF cut off in the grass on level with the hooves. The transition just does not look credible IMO and may benefit from gradually smoothing out until it reaches the tree root line.

Stunning picture though of a horse in action very well done

[Steve Conway]

I read none of the critiques before looking at your image. After reading all the "faults" that were pointed out then I gave it a careful "Sherlock Holmes and magnifing glass" look. I found what they seemed to have dug around just to have something to find fault with.

To me it looks not like the horse was dropped on the bg, but that the image was shot with a telephoto lens causing a short focal range. Therefore horse sharp, bg not. And it does indeed look like there is a slight dropoff in the landscape where the horse is.

I rather like it, especially because of the great job of removing the horse from it's original bg. And as "LQQKER" says...beautiful horse!

Keep up the good work.

Steve C.

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by Steve Conway

....I found what they seemed to have dug around just to have something to find fault with....

You are of course entitled to your opinion and have the right to disagree with comments made here by me and others.

However to suggest that anyone has dug around just to have something to find fault with is just as ridiculous a picture as you giving it your 'Sherlock Holmes and magnifying glass look'. The inference from your post that I was just looking to find fault is totally incorrect and maybe even designed to be mildly offensive?

I gave an honest opinion of what I felt looking at the image and stick by what I said. While the image may have been taken with a telephoto lens the foreshortening effect of such a lens does not to me seem apparent. In addition the depth of field plane regardless of a possible 'drop off' of the land does not look quite correct. It would be interesting to see the original background shot untouched from camera.

We do agree on one thing however that is one beautiful horse. In addition it is one great photographic capture of the animal

[Charles_cz]

It is interesting to see different approaches to examine the picture. I agree it might be a little different from what you see here on regular basis. I am learning with every picture so I am sure there are a lot of things out of whack.

Here is some tech info:
Both background and horse were shot with 70-200mm lens.
Background at 105mm wide open f/2.8
Horse was shot at 155mm f/6.3

That’s where DOF will be a little bit off but I really wanted to have horse in focus on the picture with background OOF as much as possible. I can see what can be a little bit “confusing “ as Tony pointed out is the grass edge. It’s hilly terrain and that is the way it came out of the camera. In perfect world I assume the shadow should look different behind the edge to reflect the terrain. (???) I am not exactly sure how to address that and how the shadow should look like. I have to train my brain to figure this stuff.. LOL Also, I did not want the shadow to be really harsh and prominent for printing as it was on the original. Mistake?

I am sorry I did not include both original from the beginning but I wanted to see how would you critiques/judge the image without seeing originals. Everybody pointed something out even without seeing originals. No tricks in the future, I promise. I totally understand that originals are important to correctly point out mistakes. That said I appreciate that you took this challenge and offered some input without them.

Here are links to original file.

Horse
Background

Feel free to mess with them if you wish. I hope that will shed some light in some of the issues mentioned earlier.
As you can see on the original, there is no dust or rocks flying whatsoever. I do not think that we would see anything in dry grass but that could be argued.

Thanks for the input and please let me know what would you do differently based on originals without re-shooting the background.

Thanks encouraging words. Charles

[Tony W]

Ah, the tech info explains a lot about my problem with DOF not looking quite right (there is another factor for me covered later). I did start to work out DoF for both full frame and DX at an assumed shooting distance - then stopped as I decided this was nonsense - I have seen composites that were shot at very different focal lengths and f stops that I did not recognise as such until shown. So that thinking may be irrelevant.

Anyway what I thought you may have done is to have added a gradient blur to the background which may have gone a little too far - how wrong was I.

While I could see the possibility of a hilly terrain I could not be sure this was the case - only cleared up for me later when looking at original background shots. I do not believe that you were trying to trick anyone however, but merely looking for opinion/critique.

Now the links to the Horse and BG. Well the horse was a big surprise, caught in mid air with no signs of flying debris. I agree that it is therefore unlikely that we would see the signs of such in dry grass.
The background made DOF really clear. For me the tree and grass on the right hand of the image gave the depth clues I could not appreciate in the original composite.

So I decided to have a quick go to see what if any difference I could make. Please be aware that I am stressing difference, not improvement.

In all cases I left the background as original with no cropping, so that the depth clues were still apparent.

First image. Tried to match background density of one tree to match that of the Horse picture (tree in background). Result image IMO too dark

Second Image. Overall brighten to approximate your original.

Third Image. Selective D&B on the horse only.

Shadows. This was and is the biggest problem area for me. Although the original horse and shadow obviously photographically correct it just does not feel quite right when transported to new BG. So I messed around and changed the shadows somewhat - TBH I do not think that this has improved anything - I am bad at doing shadows

EDIT: Forgot to add one that was done just for fun. You said you wanted OOF BG so added a bit of blur

[Charles_cz]

Tony,

I am glad you’ve got DOF figured out. LOL I know that original background picture helps in this case. The original background composition on purpose includes the tree.

I’ve started my composite as you did with the tree in the picture. Why have I removed it?
I’ve removed the tree to make my life easier and to eliminate one possibly major problem with the composite.

1. Make my life easier – probably just lack of experience. I never know if in this case horse is correct size for the background especially when I crop pictures. In this case – is the horse too big or too small comparing to the tree? Shooting distance and focal length play role here but to me something always looks either too big or too small. LOL

2. Possibly major problem with the composition – My wife (she rides horses all the time) asked me. Where is that horse coming from? Then it hit me. When you consider direction of the horse, suggested speed of galloping horse at least in my mind it looks like the horse jumped through the tree.
Removing the tree eliminated size ratio problem and questionable tree. I like the tree in the picture but I was just not right for me there in this case.

I like examples you did. It is good to see changes in each example.

1. I agree that horse is too dark in first image.

2. Second is closer to my look. I have cranked up exposure in RAW on purpose for print. For some reason it always comes darker from my printer. (Epson 2200)

3. I like D&B picture. I don’t mind it a little bit darker on screen as it is with warmer colors. I like warm light..

Charles

[Charles_cz]

4. Blur version is too much for my taste.

Also I forgot to mention that your shadow is looks more real to me because it doesn't extend over horizon as mine does. That is something that I did not correct before printing and I should have. Oh well. Next time.

[daygraphics]

I think it looks pretty good. There is something about the shadow that is not coming off as real. Maybe the lack of weaving in and out the blades and being sharp around the edges as the part of the ground surface is in focus. I think that maybe bringing the horse forward into the area of DOF where focus is sharp might also make the horse look less cut out - like maybe a couple of feet (in real placement) distance might place him into an area where both the ground and he are in the same plane. But pretty nice all in all.

[Charles_cz]

Originally Posted by daygraphics

I think it looks pretty good. There is something about the shadow that is not coming off as real. Maybe the lack of weaving in and out the blades and being sharp around the edges as the part of the ground surface is in focus. I think that maybe bringing the horse forward into the area of DOF where focus is sharp might also make the horse look less cut out - like maybe a couple of feet (in real placement) distance might place him into an area where both the ground and he are in the same plane. But pretty nice all in all.

Agreed, shadow is problematic and that is something I will have to learn to deal with. It will take me a while to get it. :-) Thanks for the comment.

Charles

[daygraphics]

I think that the shadow is a hard one given that it is taken from a relatively flat matted grass and ground area and being placed into an in focus higher blades of grass coverage. I played quickly with using the original shadow shape but weaving it in an out of the grass blades and sometimes missing the leaves also. BUT... it is a hard one to pull off without spending a good deal of time. Nice job again and a beautiful horse!

[Hazyleaf]

Imho, The DoF is a little bothersome, maybe by adding some DoF to the foreground of the photo,( for example: Grass area) the photo would work even better.