I didn't know which one you wanted me to look at, but I liked 9739
If it has to be a specific picture, rather than the the group as a
whole, I think
http://gpb.seanet.com/10d/pictures/?action=show&image=9772_squirrel_planning_something_evil
is the best one of the bunch.
Gamma: Your pics of squirrels in general have an underexposed feel
to them. I upped the gamma
To me, upping the gamma made it look washed out and severely lacking
in contrast. In general, I prefer a dark tonal balance in most
images.
Color Balance: I slid the Cyan-Red +5 (towards red) and the
Yellow-Blue -5 (toward yellow). This gave a much warmer and yet
natural look.
I like the current color settings. A "natural look" is rarely what
I try to achieve. For this particular image, the only change that
I made in Photoshop was a large increase in saturation.
As far as color balance and gamma: I do my editing with Photoshop
CS on a Mac, and keep the ICC profile in the image when I export
for the web. I realize that is unconventional, but the way I see
it is that since the only browser that does a really good job of
displaying images is Safari for Mac, that I should target that
browser. Your browser is probably not using the ICC profile, and it
is possible that either your editing software isn't, or one of our
monitors is out of calibration.
Sharpen: A slight USM adjustment restored crispness to the paw and
face.
Lately, I haven't been using USM. It does make detail more
apparent, but I think it also makes the image appear a bit more
"coarse" as well as giving a bit of a "video" look.
Give it a shot, see what you think.
I tried your ideas, but liked my original better.
