Another B&W try, lion this time.

[StormChaser]

Messed with curves and USM this time, but can't really put my finger on it,(or it's my screen) but I'm stil missing something.

[Andre]

Looks great to me. Nice job!

[Tom V]

Anthonie,

I like the basic shot, but I think there are a few things working against it. The textures, tones and drama are all there, but they aren't working together quite right.

My eye(s) are consantly being drawn to the bright sky on the right, and even the little bright puddle lower right. The tower distracts from the lion. Maybe your lens is too wide for this shot - I can't see the lion's face. If you backed off, you may have been able to include more face, more paws, less background, less distraction.

I thought I would try darkening the sky some, burning in the corners, and lightening the lion.

Attached is the QuickMask I used. I made it with the Grad tool, and some big airbrushes. I tried to keep it very soft, and I overlapped onto the lion somewhat. Also shown is the Curve I used to bring up the tones of the lion. There was nothing to do with Levels, they looked great - as I said, you have all the tones (255 of them), just not in the right place. <- artistic opinon.

I also burned in the corners with the Burn tool, first the midtones, then the highlights. (Maybe too much?)

[Tom V]

Result.

Maybe this is more what you're looking for.

A million solutions... A million opinions.

[StormChaser]

Thanks for the short course Tom, I agree that the sky is to bright for the shot, maybe I should crop the shot even more and leave out the monument. But in your example the lion looks very grainy and lost some detail.
I guess it's exactly as you said, so many opinions. But I'm glad you showed me and I'll keep on experimenting with it.

If (big if) I get it right, I'll repost it.

Thanks a lot.:cheers:

[StormChaser]

It's a late night try, but it's a bit better like this.

[petej]

Good work guys--- i think i like the original the best but its great to see different variations of the same image.

Peter