I like it on download. Appealing composition, nice use of the negative space, the specks of white on the animal and the gauzy look of the foliage really work. Maybe increase the idea of the silhouette of the animal with selectively higher contrast just in that area.

Maybe glare. Could be made worse by using protective lens filter or not using lens hood or both.

Would not be too hard to fix in Photoshop or whatever.

It's a good question. On the one hand someone with the expertise you want might be working on their own art so wouldn't want to spend time on yours. Of course paid work is paid work. On the other hand knowledgeable people with great eyes might be found as editors in art departments at various publications, as curators at public museums and galleries, as art profs at colleges, and similar places. So maybe chat up an institution near you and explain your situation.

Just thinking randomly about where I live, here we have Cleveland Museum of Art and they are very friendly in general. There is the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland State University has a fine art department, maybe the prof that teaches the criticism class, the main library has a librarian just for the art section who could have plenty of resources, there are big and small galleries in certain areas of town.

Thinking nationally, of course the Smithsonian and the many DC museums would have knowledgeable people if you find the right person willing to talk, and of course NYC and the Met, MoMA, Frick and on and on.

So just rambling at this point, but maybe just make up a generic email to a few places where art people hang out and see if anybody answers.

The downloads show off the sharpness.

In your view can I take it as a general principal that cropping an image, any image from any camera, will result in a loss of dynamic range compared to not cropping?

And would the loss be proportional to ____?

Or are there any generalizations one could carry into the field?

That is pretty cool. I had no idea those tools were in Photoshop. I guess I usually would alt click to isolate one layer then repeatedly click the comparison layer on and off. As for side by side I know Photoshop will sync to a duplicate but will it sync to a separate file?

They say the smart money bets on the glass. That's one thing I like about the R cameras, you get the entirety of EF lenses to pick from, and some of those slightly out of date but high quality EF lenses can be a relative bargain. For example I would rather have the rf 100-500 at $2800, or next in line I would rather have a used EF 100-400ii at $1800, but my photo budget allowed for A used EF100-400 version one for $800. Not my first or second choice, but still a quality lens for the money.

We are talking about the impact of cropping on dynamic range for an image from the exact same sensor on the same camera.

So, roughly, I crop by 1/3 to lose one stop DR. I crop by 1/2 to lose _____? Would it be a simple ratio?

Can we see a screenshot of the layers panel? Also, if you double click that camera raw smart layer to re-open it, do you still see the same settings you changed there? You should.

Final thought, the filter in the smart object layer is not an adjustment layer. Adjustment layers apply to the whole image unless you clip them to a certain layer or use the mask in the adjustment layer. The smart filter only applies to the layer it is attached to, so any normal layer above it will override, as mentioned above.

So agreeing that cropping reduces dynamic range if the image is resized, by magnifying noise, is it possible to make a rule of thumb, even an approximate; for example for every x amount of area cropped you lose y stops of dynamic range?

In this case it is the identical sensor, though. The pixels are the same size.

I'm not sure I understand the question. I believe The camera raw filter only is a smart filter if you have first converted that layer to a smart object, otherwise it just bakes the results into the layer you have selected. But I don't think that is your question?

I mean if I only needed a final image of say 1000x1500 out of a 4000x6000 sensor. Just taking that slice out and using it as is wouldn't reduce dynamic range would it?

So thinking of some real world cropping scenarios, let's say I have a 4000x6000 sensor:

1. If I only need a final image of 1000x1500 I could fill the frame and downsample or not fill the frame and use a cropped portion of the image. More dynamic range with fill the frame?

2. If I need 4000x6000 I could fill the frame and use all pixels or not fill the frame and resize the crop up to 4000x6000. More dynamic range with fill the frame?