Comments on how to make this photo better?

PrettyKitty · October 9, 2009

Any advice on how to improve this photo?

I KNOW the eyes are a hint out of focus but by the time I lowered my aperture to incease my depth of field, he moved.. haha... so consider this a learning exercise... how ELSE can I improve the picture. I've already done some editing.... but would love to hear what you have in mind!

The photo is available for download if you feel like playing with it at:
http://CatLuke.zenfolio.com/p617591397/e38da25f8

Otherwise you can tell me generally how to improve it. I'd like to see his eyes pop a little more but wasn't sure how to do it properly besides just dodging and sharpening... any other thoughts?

What do you think of the vignette? I like it... but i know i tend to over-due it. What other things do you see that I could work on? I really want to get better at processing my images!

sunburst · October 9, 2009

PrettyKitty wrote:

Any advice on how to improve this photo? I KNOW the eyes are a hint out of focus but by the time I lowered my aperture to incease my depth of field, he moved.. haha... so consider this a learning exercise... how ELSE can I improve the picture. I've already done some editing.... but would love to hear what you have in mind!

The photo is available for download if you feel like playing with it at:
http://CatLuke.zenfolio.com/p617591397/e38da25f8

Otherwise you can tell me generally how to improve it. I'd like to see his eyes pop a little more but wasn't sure how to do it properly besides just dodging and sharpening... any other thoughts?

What do you think of the vignette? I like it... but i know i tend to over-due it. What other things do you see that I could work on? I really want to get better at processing my images!

I clipped your image from this page rather than downloading it from your link, cloned out one of the reflections in each eye, selected just the eyes with the magic wand, sharpened the eyes, then brightened slightly and increased the contrast. I didn't bother to record the numbers, I was just trying it to see if you liked the effect.

kwcrow · October 10, 2009

It looks too red or magenta. It may be the reflections from the blanket, but I still think it could use some white balance work.

Sam · October 10, 2009

Here is my take on this.

Sam

pathfinder · October 10, 2009

I agree with the comment about too warm, due to the reflection from the red blanket.

I downloaded your file, opened it in PS, and used the threshold command to find a suitable black and white point. This corrected the red cast a bit.

I sharpened the whole file with a High Pass filter set at 7, and then selected the eyes with a Quick Mask, and sharpened them only with USM ~ 250, 5, 2 , and then increased the local contrast of the whole image with USM 20, 50, 2.

Here is the result linked from my smugmug account - you can download the original edited file from this address http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/Other/Large-files/1789718_YdTAs#676290631_EVPAt-O-LB