A Dog's Life

[steelerdirtfreak]

A couple of month's ago, my wife and I were dog-sitting for some friends. I happened to have my S5000 handy and took this shot. I then got to fooling around with it and ended up with the result being the 2nd photo.

What might I have done to further improve/enhance this shot? If I were to get a chance to shoot a similar shot with my new D70, what should I do differently? (Or what settings would be optimal?)

[EmbeddedMatt]

I think the halo around the head is much too strong and I don't think you need the brown color in the background. The pose is great and at this size at least it looks like you did a good job with the extraction.

[Young Shooter]

it kinda looks cool what u did in photoshop
what a very creative imagination

[jar_e]

I agree about the halo around the head. Your PS work looks great, maybe just try to boost the sharpness next time, just to avoid the flat look!

Nice shot and welcome to the boards,

Jared

[natefromri]

Nice! I'd love to hear about how specifically you did the steps you did to get this to look so smooth a background. I'm new to that aspect of Photoshop.

By the way, I think I have the same vacuum cleaner as your friend.

--Nate

[steelerdirtfreak]

I think the halo around the head is much too strong and I don't think you need the brown color in the background. The pose is great and at this size at least it looks like you did a good job with the extraction.

I fooled around with it a little, is this one any better?

[steelerdirtfreak]

Nice! I'd love to hear about how specifically you did the steps you did to get this to look so smooth a background. I'm new to that aspect of Photoshop.

By the way, I think I have the same vacuum cleaner as your friend.

--Nate

This is from The Photoshop Elements Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby:

1. Made a custom gradient, light grey to grey (although this is what added in the brown appearing texture, so maybe a little different coloring?)

2. Applied this custom gradient to a new layer in a new document.

3. Add a new layer, press letter 'd' to set default colors, then use the filter -> Render -> Clouds, lower opacity to 20%

4.Add 2% noise, gaussian

5. another new layer, then use elliptical marquee tool, draw cirlce, fill w/ white, apply a gaussian blur (60%?), opacity at 70% (although in my 2nd attempt, I've lowered that to 45%)

6. Either use as is, or adjust color with Hue/Saturation -> Colorize; adjust to desired color

7. Add photo

That's a very simplified version of the steps. I really recommend the book, I've used it a lot to learn what little bit I do know. Hope this was helpful.

[jar_e]

Paul,

Your most recent post is perfect. Way less on the halo and very effective! Great shot and PS work,

Jared