…well, tree rat that is. Kinda cute, I have to admit …even if he / she is eating all of what is supposed to be bird food. That’s why the corn on the ground – For the squirrels (but they eat everything anyway).
Processing-wise the challenge for me was to bring the rodent off the visually equally-busy grass background without looking fake / overdone. I think I more or less succeeded, but I’m also sure it can be done better.
Canon T8i / 850D, EF 70mm-300 f/4-5.6 IS USM Edited in ART 1.19.3, resized for PIXLS and exported in Affinity Photo.
Here’s mine, darktable 4.2.1. A bit of split toning with Color Balance RGB for colour separation, warming the grass in Color Calibration, Contrast Eq to calm down the surroundings and sharpen the squirrel, then rounding off with a couple of masked exposure instances.
That’s a very similar to the approach I took in ART. In addition to the Tone Equalizer I used three masked Color / Tone local edits and a pair of foreground / background masks with positive and negative Local Contrast to subtly emphasize the squirrel and slightly soften the background. I also dropped saturation on the grass (which is something I rarely have to do!).
They’re cute although they can take over a yard. And yeah, I started on mine too late as well. I need to enforce a strict “look at final images for two days before posting” rule. So far, I’m in violation.
