Lioness edit - critique requested

[Richard Guijt]

Hi,

Im trying to improve my image editing. I do want to stay true to nature, so no chemical vivid setting or fancy editing styles. I do approach my edits as an art style, not as a documentary style.
Having edited the below photo, but im in doubt about the color / warmth. Did I overshoot the WB?
Shot with Nikon D850 - 200-400 vr2

Any other advice/critique is welcome as well

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[Butlerkid]

Tough to make an assessment given the small size. The coloration of the edited image looks acceptable to me albeit a tiny bit saturated in the yellow/oranges. I've been for Africa many times and found that the coloring of lions does vary a bit from grayish yellow to more saturated colors. I do not believe images must be a "xerox copy" of the actual scene.

 

[DRwyoming]

Did I overshoot the WB?

It's up to you, but to my eyes the right hand image is fine and very plausible in terms of the grass and lion colors. I try to match what I remember from actually taking the photo and only you know that but to me the edited image looks much like I'd expect it look.

Any other advice/critique is welcome as well

Great photo and I really like the composition.

From an image processing standpoint it's really rare I need as many unique masks in LR as you show especially for a fundamentally well shot image. You might explore other global approaches like use of Shadow, Highlights, Black and White points or maybe the hue selective adjustments in addition to mask based approaches.

 

[Richard Guijt]

Tough to make an assessment given the small size. The coloration of the edited image looks acceptable to me albeit a tiny bit saturated in the yellow/oranges. I've been for Africa many times and found that the coloring of lions does vary a bit from grayish yellow to more saturated colors. I do not believe images must be a "xerox copy" of the actual scene.

Thanks for your input. I always kinda struggle with the yellows, it seems a difficult color to get correct. From what I read the Nikon camera's (and profiles) do tend to show warmer color vs other brands though

 

[Mark Garfinkel]

Like the right image as is.

 

[Butlerkid]

I loved my D850 and found the colors quite true. However, I create a custom camera color profile (think of it as similar to calibrating a monitor) for each of my camera bodies. If the camera does not reflect accurate colors, the s/w - using a Color Checker Passport - creates a small script that adjusts the colors. Adobe and most other raw processing software then allow you to select that profile instead of Standard (Shade, cloudy, etc) .