How to finish these off?

ChaKira

How would you finish these?


I was thinking maybe having a black background on this one??

Peano

Nice shot! The eyes have it.

ChaKira

Wow thanks! How did you do that?

Peano

ChaKira wrote: »

Wow thanks! How did you do that?

In Photoshop ...

1. a curves adjustment layer to selective brighten the eyes and surrounding area
2. a hue/sat adjustment layer to darken the whole image, then painted with black on the mask to restore brightness to the eyes
3. sharpened with Topaz Detail

JC

Honestly? I'd mark them both down as a learning experience and try again. I don't think the framing on the second shot works with this cat- the white blaze draws too much attention away from the eye with this crop. The crop on the first one works better with the coloring of the cat, because the blaze fades away, and acts more to direct the eye towards the cat's eyes. But then your focus is too short, I think the eyes should be in focus, not the nose, for my preference here.

paddler4

Following on Kolibri's comment--I can't get the exif off the image, so I don't know what f/stop you used, but I would close down the aperture more (larger f number). I agree that the eyes should be in focus, but unless you deliberately want to blur the nose when you focus on the eyes, you need more depth of field.

Overfocused

Cat's eyes have a lot of intricate patterns in them... out of focus is a miss in my opinion.

BinaryFx

I agree that it is all about the eyes. It is so hard to photograph animals and young children, so one is usually happy whenever a shot is mostly in focus! Auto focus can often lock in on something that is unwanted and one may not have the time for manual focus.

All that being said, I would also try to bring out detail in the eyes and the fur. If the output is print, then one may just get a black blob - so one may have to really emphasise the detail for some of it to survive the print process. The great thing about adding too much detail is that one can always dial it back so that it is not too intense.

I have set this example to volume "11", it is easy enough to lower the intensity so that it does not distract from the eyes while still adding some definition.


Stephen Marsh

ChaKira

BinaryFx wrote: »

I agree that it is all about the eyes. It is so hard to photograph animals and young children, so one is usually happy whenever a shot is mostly in focus! Auto focus can often lock in on something that is unwanted and one may not have the time for manual focus.

All that being said, I would also try to bring out detail in the eyes and the fur. If the output is print, then one may just get a black blob - so one may have to really emphasise the detail for some of it to survive the print process. The great thing about adding too much detail is that one can always dial it back so that it is not too intense.

I have set this example to volume "11", it is easy enough to lower the intensity so that it does not distract from the eyes while still adding some definition.


Stephen Marsh

Thank you - I love the detail