Goose: Before and After

Let me tell ya... the people at the DPS forums are fantastic! Here's the entire thread on my critique and post-processing of a cat named Goose.

I posted that pic of Goose from the other day for critique on DPS. I knew it could be improved in post-processing, but had no clue what to do next. They gave me some tips, and - holy cow! Goose is one handsome devil :)

Goose - BEFORE:


Goose - AFTER:


Much improved, no?? I think so!!

The greatest part is, I had no clue how to do the things they had suggested, so I had to look it all up... I learned a ton just from messing with this one picture of Goose!

Here's what I did:
First, I worked on the blur on the background. I never knew you could feather a selection - so I feathered it at 30px around the top of his head and body to prevent that unnatural line I was getting before. I did a lens blur, and pretty much maxed out all of the blur values. I also de-saturated that area and darkened it a bit.

Next, I learned how to use the quick mask tool to make a selection out of the inside of his eyes, and then I just increased the brightness there (which amazingly brought out the green in his eyes! I was shocked - I had no idea that could be done!)

Then, I upped the yellows and reds in the whole picture to warm up Goose's browns a bit. I was really unsure here - I'm not sure if there's some magic formula as to how much yellow/red one should have in a photo, but I went for as warm as I could without making it look fake. (Did I go too far?)

Finally, I used the unsharp mask on his facial area. I think I ended up with a radius of 2 and about 40%. Honestly I have no idea what exactly this tool does. I do know that when I went too far with it, his fur started to look like sticks :) So I went far enough to make his fur a bit more defined but stopped when it started looking weird.

Oh - and I cropped the left side down to his paw. I like the tighter crop, now that I see it :)

A cat named Goose

I posted this for critique at DPS: A cat named Goose

Yes, his name is Goose. I have a cat named Goose. (It makes more sense when I explain that the other two are named Merlin and Maverick).

Anyhooo I really like this shot of him, but I have a few critiques of my own and would love your feedback. (I know, you must all get tired of pet shots, and I can't even begin to compare with shots like Kitty Toes from KagoGrl - that shot was awesome!) But, I'm learning :)

First, I like that I got the focus on his eyes (or eye area, since his eyes are all sleepy-closed) so that his nose is a bit out of focus and the rest of his body is a bit out of focus.

I don't like the background. I wish the mess on my shelves was a bit more blurred. I tried to do a lens blur in Photoshop, but I really need to learn more about post-production, because I couldn't get the lens blur to look natural. It made a very fake looking line along the cat's head.

I wish Goose hadn't laid on his whiskers such that his right-hand whiskers were tucked under his face. I probably could try cloning his left whiskers and putting some on the right, but I think that's a bit beyond my PS skill level at this point!

I don't mind his ears being cut off. I don't think it hurts my ability to know what the photo is of, and I don't think that seeing his full ears would necessarily add anything.

What else could I do to improve this shot? It's straight from the camera, uncropped. I shot it without looking through the viewfinder, as that is MY arm he's laying on! (I do wish I had a nice tan or something, haha).

Thanks!

Composition: Uphill

I was out in the back yard goofing around with my camera today, and happened to catch a couple sets of golfers carrying their bags along the course. I was immediately inclined to take a picture, since most golfers around here opt for the golf carts.

I like the composition of both, but I wish I could have gotten golfer #1 into composition #2. I like the shot of the hills better in the second photo, but prefer the lone golfer. He also looks a bit more like he's working hard to hoof it up that hill, which was what I was going for in the "story" I was trying to tell.

I've posted the second photo to DPS for critique. It's the first photo I've posted there for critique, and I'm a little nervous as to what they'll say. There are some fantastically talented photographers over there, and I'm just little ol' me. I look forward to getting some suggestions, though (even if it makes me cry! LOL j/k)

What is Bokeh?

What is bokeh?

In photography, Bokeh is a Japanese word - the transliteration of a Japanese word for "blur" - describing the subjective aesthetic quality of out-of-focus areas of an image projected by a camera lens. For example, in some images the background may be deliberately caused to be out-of-focus to reduce distractions and to emphasize the primary subject.

-- Wikipedia -Bokeh

I've seen the word "bohek" mentioned on the DPS forums a lot lately, but didn't really know what it meant until I came across an article posted by newbie (who doesn't seem to be a newbie at all!). The article is called "Bokeh Lesson from a Patient Bee" and I found it to be hugely helpful in explaining and demonstrating what good vs less than good bokeh looks like.

newbie goes on to give 4 detailed lessons on what makes good bokeh, including descriptions, examples of camera settings, and illustrative photos.

Very helpful! Thanks, newbie!

Howl at the Moon

Yep, more moon shots.

I was driving home tonight as saw the coolest red moon hanging low in the sky. I broke a few traffic laws to try and get home as fast as I could (hey, they're meant to be guidelines, right?), but couldn't get home fast enough to catch the wicked red shade. By the time I grabbed my camera and got outside, it was more yellowish than anything.

These shots were hand-held with my 70-300mm lens (which has image stabilization). To try and avoid the street lights, I drove down the road a bit and took these from a spot away from street lights. I was only a half mile or so from home, though, so there was still (sadly) plenty of skyline/ambient light. I thought it might help a bit with the noise to get away from the houses. It doesn't seem to have helped much.

On the ones colored au naturale, I increased the blacks one notch in Lightroom to counteract the noise. On the others, I left them unprocessed (except for cropping) and switched to grayscale mode.

This moon is waning gibbous with 86% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Butterfly

Unexpected photo op - This morning, I was looking out my (home) office window for a bit, trying to motivate myself to get ready to leave for work. As I was organizing my pre-work agenda in my head (get dressed, stop at the bank, stop at the post office to mail the video card I just sold on ebay), I saw a big orange butterfly sitting on the yellow flowering bushes along the bank of the pond in my back yard.

I grabbed my camera and ran downstairs. He didn't stick around for long, but I was able to snag a couple shots:

Lunar Eclipse Photos

Last night, when I went to bed, I had decided that I was too tired to try and wake up in the middle of the night to view and photograph the total lunar eclipse, which was scheduled to go total at 4:52am. I fell sound asleep, until my cat started puking on my bed at 4:25am. Coincidence? I figured, at that point, since I'd already gotten out of bed to clean up cat puke, I might as well take the tripod outside and photograph the eclipse....

Here are a few of the pictures I got. I think I figured out the source of the noise in my blacks. It has got to be the bright street lights that backlight me. There is one bright light 2 doors down from my driveway, and many others lining my street. The longer exposures were doing well to enhance the moon, but the noise in the blacks would get worse and worse. It's practically like shooting in daylight, the street lights are so close by and so bright. So, I'm figuring that is it. Unfortunately, unlike my first quarter moon shots, upping the black levels in the photos obscures part of the shadowed moon, so you'll just have to live with the noise and not zoom in too close :) I didn't crop most of these, for that reason.

My general settings were:

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	0.8 sec (4/5)
Aperture:	f/5.6
Focal Length:	300 mm
ISO Speed:	200
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV
Flash:	Flash did not fire

. Click any of them to see larger ones in Flickr, or view the set at Flickr.

The first 4 photos are the partial eclipse, and the last 2 are after the total eclipse:







Exactly 4:52am, the start time of the total eclipse:


4:53am