Preserving the Mood
As a part of post processing in Wildlife photography one of the first things we do is increase the contrast. Contrast increase is good for most images and it makes the overall image vibrant. Since the camera renders the image at 18% gray especially when shooting raw the image to start with the image has a muddy look. Contrast increase is what removes the muddy look. We typically use levels or curves to improve contrast. Over time it becomes such a regular practice we end up blindly increasing contrast without bothering about the end result. For the following images I started in the similar direction but I realized after finishing that was not the result I liked in the image in the first place. Let us look at each image seperately

I had made this at pench. I had posted this sometime back. Since it was winter the hoopoe's were coming on to the safari tracks to get the warmth coming from the rising dust generated by passing jeeps. With the dust cloud the visibility was poor and it made the overall scene dull. This essentially was the mood in the image. Increasing the contrast removed the mood.


One more image where I avoided increasing the contrast. The egret was fishing in the evening light. The light was fading. The overall setting was dull. To bring out the same mood in addition to not increasing contrast converted to black and white also.