Dog House

Dogdots

Neighbor guy watching me

I have a terrible time taking photos of black dogs. This was taken on a very overcast day. I worked with it the best I could.

Any advice on how to photograph black dogs would be greatly appreciated

Sam

White paint, flour, fill flash, reflector, trade him in on craigslist for a brown dog, don't photograph black dogs claim they are like big foot and don't exist.

Expose for the subject and let everything else fall where it may.

Sam

Richard

Sam wrote: »

Expose for the subject and let everything else fall where it may.

Sam

Yes. Spot metering can be useful, but you also need to use negative exposure compensation of at least a stop. Say goodbye to the background, though, if it's bright. I've never actually tried it, but I would think HDR might also be useful for a black dog.

black mamba

Hey Mary,

Well, you picked a toughie this time. Coal black dog in a predominantly white surrounding....hard to pull off. I face the same situation when I'm shooting black cars in a bright environment. As others have said, you have to treat the subject as the element that most matters. In my case, I shoot that dark car in center-weighted metering and I'll dial in at least a full stop of negative exposure compensation....in extreme cases I might even go more than that. I'm like Richard here...I wonder if the HDR tactics can help in these instances. Probably could.

Take care,

Tom

Dogdots

Hi Tom, Richard and Sam

Thought I'd respond to you all at once since you all have the same suggestions .. pretty much

Ok think I've got it .. subject is the most important. The background will be 'what it will be'. That I can do. When I starting taking photos of this dog I over exposed it, but dumped those because the background was just terrible. I should of kept them and played with them some. Lesson learned for me.

Did do a wee bit of HDR on the dog and the whole photo that I posted. Helped some, but to really get it to help the dog it made the whole photo look HDR'ish.

Sam ... your a hoot I was looking at a black pup the other day. Really wanted to get him, but the hubby said no. After I got home I wondered how the heck I'd ever photograph him. His nose was no bigger then a pencil eraser. He was so black you couldn't see his eyes or nose.

Richard and Tom ... You had me pulling out my camera manual for the spot metering and center weighted metering. I really need to study and practice with my camera more. Those two options certainly would of been beneficial to me.

So what I did was go back to my photo and do some more HDR on just the dog again. Then I dodged the dogs face a little more. I didn't push far since I was getting a really creepy look to the dog. Starting to wonder if when working with HDR it's best sometimes to do it low and then do it again low, etc.

It's better, but I wish my neighbors would have lighter colored dogs. This neighborhood is full of black labs.

2nd try --

Jack'll do

Hi Mary
I would think that this is a good candidate for hdr/tonemapping. However there is another pretty simple way to deal with this in photoshop.
Here is a quick and easy fix on your photo that I just did. Mind you I am doing it at 11PM sitting at my workbench in my garage with a very large glass of Cabernet and smoking my pipe. I am also working on a small laptop with a touch pad whereas I usually work on a 30" monitor with a proper mouse. So be advised that it's not my best work
When I finish my pipe I'll go into the house and edit the file to add directions.



Directions.

1.Make a copy of the original file and process the copy image to make the background the way you want it
a. I added an exposure adj. layer and adjusted till the bg was a bit darker
b. I added a curves layer and set the blk pt on the ring that hangs from the chain, and the white point on the plank the chain hangs from.
c. then added brightness/contrast layer and increased contrast
d. flattened image
2.On the original image I concentrated on the dog
a. I added exposure adj. layer and adjusted exposure till I liked the dog + 0.45 then adjusted gamma -1.24
b.added Curves layer and set blk pt on dogs chest and wht pt on dog house column
c. Flattened image
3. Now you have two images, one with good bg., one with good subject
a. go to the adj'd copy image (with the good bg), select all, copy the selection
b. go to the adjusted original image (with the good subject), and paste (this will put the adj'd copy image as a layer on top of the adj'd original image)
c. You now have an image with two layers, the top has good bg, the bottom good subj.
d. Add a white adjustment layer mask to the top layer
e.make the bottom layer invisible
f. if subject is small, increase image to 200%
g. select paint brush with black paint, use a small brush, hardness 100%, opacity 100%, flow 100%.
h. Begin painting in the white layer mask (not either image itself).
i. outline the interior edge of the dog all around. The dog will begin to disappear because the bottom layer has been set to invisible. Adjust brush size as necessary to paint out the dog.
j. When the dog is completely painted out, make the bottom layer visible and the dog from the bottom will be revealed.
k. Flatten the image, make any overall tweaks you want.

PS. that green OOF diamond shape thing could be dealt with in yet another layer if you wanted.

Hope this helps and makes sense. If you have any questions, PM me and I'll give you my phone #

black mamba

Darned impressive work, Jack. I got about half-way down your list of directions and then the room started swirling....sent me to the sofa so I could recover. I called the doctor....he said it was a classic case of curves and layer poisoning. No wonder that I'm no good at extensive PP work.

Tom

Dogdots

Looks fabulous thumb

I am humbled that you took the time to help me out with this. Thank you so very much

Jack your work opened a whole new door into editing for me. This was something that I knew could be done, but never knew how too and felt too dumb to ask. I've copied your instructions down and will give it a try. If I run into any problems I will PM you.

Wow ... If I come across a black dog I'll never shake in fear again about photographing it. And ... I can get a black dog without worrying that I'll never have any good photos of it Last night I thought about this and was cringing that I may need to get a point and shoot to take it's photo.

Think I'm going to take up wine drinking, pipe smoking and sitting out in the garage with a laptop. Sounds relaxing and a setting that can spark creativity.

I'll post my work when I'm done. Should be this evening sometime. Cross your fingers and wish me luck

Thanks again Jack

Jack'll do

I'm so glad you found it helpful. I was a little concerned you might find it presumptuous but having traded posts with you for some years I couldn't sit back and not give you a nudge in the right direction. I'm sure your results will be even better cause you'll be working with a larger, higher ppi image to begin with, then resizing the flattened image.

One more little hint on an unrelated note. I shoot in raw, do minor adjustments in ACR then bring it into PS, Often the image at this point looks just a little dull. If that happens to you, do filter>sharpen>unsharp mask with the following settings Amount 15 - 20, Radius 250 or all the way to the right, Threshold 2 - 3. Though this is not a sharpening per se, I find this makes a noticeable improvement in the vast majority of images and now always try it as the first step after conversion from RAW.

Sam

While I am familiar with selective processing, I didn't think there was any detail in the posted image to recover. You did great Jack!

You did however leave out the most important information. What brand of Cabernet did you have, and what blend of herbal substances were you smoking?

Sam

Jack'll do

Sam wrote: »

While I am familiar with selective processing, I didn't think there was any detail in the posted image to recover. You did great Jack!

You did however leave out the most important information. What brand of Cabernet did you have, and what blend of herbal substances were you smoking?

Sam

Thanks Sam and roflrofl I'll never tell

Dogdots

Jack'll do wrote: »

I'm so glad you found it helpful. I was a little concerned you might find it presumptuous but having traded posts with you for some years I couldn't sit back and not give you a nudge in the right direction. I'm sure your results will be even better cause you'll be working with a larger, higher ppi image to begin with, then resizing the flattened image.

One more little hint on an unrelated note. I shoot in raw, do minor adjustments in ACR then bring it into PS, Often the image at this point looks just a little dull. If that happens to you, do filter>sharpen>unsharp mask with the following settings Amount 15 - 20, Radius 250 or all the way to the right, Threshold 2 - 3. Though this is not a sharpening per se, I find this makes a noticeable improvement in the vast majority of images and now always try it as the first step after conversion from RAW.

Never feel concerned about helping me out. I love help. I'm happy you felt you knew me well enough to know I'd be fine with your input. Been thinking about the editing process all day while I was out and about. Thought I would be able to work on it tonight, but can't. Tomorrow I can.

I shoot in RAW too, but never do any editing in ACR. I know .. I should and have tried, but you mentioned the 'dull' look and I've seen that when I've tried it and just stopped doing it.

Will try out your hint too on the filter/sharp/unsharp. Never did that before either. I'm really sounding hopeless aren't I

Again thank you so much. You've opened up a whole new world to me in editing

Dogdots

Well I did it Thanks Jack -- I amazed myself with this one. Since working with a 'mask' was all new to me .. well I didn't even know how to make it happen....thought I was going to have to 'PM' you for something so trivial, but I figured it out. Messed up on the upper part of the dogs head, but for the first time run at it .... it's looking good. Think I made the dog a little to light since there's some funky stuff going on with him when I zoom in on him. I'll do a redo later to correct his head and how light he is. Thought about correcting it, but wanted to post what I did the first time around so if you see any other things I missed you can let me know.

With this photo I did use Topaz on it .. just a tad - 1% - and ran it through my denoise too. 1% doesn't sound like much or even make a difference, but it did. I've not done any color saturation yet.

Again Jack I thank you. Seems I can't say it enough, but really you did open up a whole new world of editing for me.

Jack'll do

Dogdots wrote: »

Well I did it Thanks Jack -- I amazed myself with this one. Since working with a 'mask' was all new to me .. well I didn't even know how to make it happen....thought I was going to have to 'PM' you for something so trivial, but I figured it out. Messed up on the upper part of the dogs head, but for the first time run at it .... it's looking good. Think I made the dog a little to light since there's some funky stuff going on with him when I zoom in on him. I'll do a redo later to correct his head and how light he is. Thought about correcting it, but wanted to post what I did the first time around so if you see any other things I missed you can let me know.

With this photo I did use Topaz on it .. just a tad - 1% - and ran it through my denoise too. 1% doesn't sound like much or even make a difference, but it did. I've not done any color saturation yet.

Again Jack I thank you. Seems I can't say it enough, but really you did open up a whole new world of editing for me.

Good going Mary! clap I think you have done an excellent job here. I really am glad I could be of help.

Dogdots

Jack'll do wrote: »

Good going Mary! clap I think you have done an excellent job here. I really am glad I could be of help.

Must say I had fun doing it

If I messed up anywhere please let me know.

I thank you again Jack

billseye

Just gotta say that this thread is a perfect example of why I like hanging out on Dgrin so much. Great information and deomnstrated personal growth with technique. Wow!

Dogdots

billseye wrote: »

Just gotta say that this thread is a perfect example of why I like hanging out on Dgrin so much. Great information and deomnstrated personal growth with technique. Wow!

So true