potential

Anson

I have always loved the potential of this capture, except for the classic black blob on the beach...in this case China (in white) is perfecto and Bugsy (in black) stinks!


F/8 - 1/640 - ISO100 - WB sun -
.... was taken in relatively high, late afternoon sun.

I have read many posts regarding this black dog/white dog challenge and have yet to figure out the fix, apparently I am a slowww learner!

Can one realistically expect to achieve a well exposed photo, of both the white and black dog - in camera
... or is bracket mode needed along with photoshop tweaking to get the shot

thanks

mercphoto

Anson wrote:

Can one realistically expect to achieve a well exposed photo, of both the white and black dog - in camera
... or is bracket mode needed along with photoshop tweaking to get the shot

I think wedding photog's have a similar problem (black tux, white dress). And this is a stretch for digital sensors. I would be surprised if you could get a nice capture as an in-camera JPG. My guess woud be expose for the white dog, shoot RAW, make a second conversion that is over-exposed to get detail in the black dog, then layer and mask. This assumes the black dog hasn't gone 100% black.

Shay Stephens

The photo looks underexposed to me and a bit green/blue. A second problem is going to be the weak hazy sun light. In order to get any kind of black hair detail, you are going to want some nice contrasty hard light to create some gleam on the black hair.

When shooting with soft light, you loose a lot of contrast and shadow detail suffers the most.

mercphoto

Shay Stephens wrote:

The photo looks underexposed to me and a bit green/blue. A second problem is going to be the weak hazy sun light. In order to get any kind of black hair detail, you are going to want some nice contrasty hard light to create some gleam on the black hair.

When shooting with soft light, you loose a lot of contrast and shadow detail suffers the most.

Now Shay, you make me feel embarrassed to not have suggested using a flash on a photo like this. I also wonder if Rutt's LAB Chapter 1 could help with the haze.

Shay Stephens

Well no, I wasn't suggesting flash, but a bright sunny day without the haze would have provided a harder light with more contrast. So in this case, part of the problem is the lighting, and by lighting, I mean any light that illuminates the scene, either natural or unnatural.

Here is my edit of the photo:


Mostly levels to brighten and color correct. Then did a spot levels adjustment on the black dog to bring it out a little.

mercphoto wrote:

Now Shay, you make me feel embarrassed to not have suggested using a flash on a photo like this. I also wonder if Rutt's LAB Chapter 1 could help with the haze.

Anson

regarding PS tweaks
Hey guys, thanks very much for the input...

Merc..flash was not an option as they were a distance away (I prefer to use the flash option, as little as possible/almost never)

.any tutorials(basic/ for beginners) that you could direct me too on techniques that you used and recommended
-color correct
-spot levels adjustment
-layer
-mask


Shay, MUCH improved, but still not a real keeper, aye!

ginger_55

uh, you just want to save it to show your dogs off, not sell it, imo. Shay, I think you did good, but you forgot to clean up the beach.

I don't have time right now.

Anson, do you have PS CS2, with shadow/highlights, you do need that, IMO, for a shot like this.

ginger

Shay Stephens

That is currently above my pay grade

ginger_55 wrote:

Shay ... you forgot to clean up the beach.

ginger_55

Well, I did a bit kind of crummy! The darn thing becomes compulsive and one shouldn't hurry it. But I have to quit, gotta!

g


I know the black around the dog should be better, but I just don't have time right now!!!!!

yeah, my pay is always zip!

g

Shay Stephens

ginger_55 wrote:

Well, I did a bit

But why? All those things on the beach make it look like a beach :-)

If you sanitize it, you wind up with less of a scene, and one that can never look "real" if you know what I mean

Khaos

Shay Stephens wrote:

But why? All those things on the beach make it look like a beach :-)

If you sanitize it, you wind up with less of a scene, and one that can never look "real" if you know what I mean

I agree with Shay. I actually upped the sharpness to bring the beach and dogs in more. You can also change the color temp in RAW conversion instead of shooting jpeg.

ginger_55

shay, it is my experience here with "my" beaches, some of the beaches are cleaner than others. I don't, just personally, like "dirty" beaches. And I am talking the natural stuff, not trash.

I can take a photo of a beach here and not have to touch it, it is so clean. Or it can be as this one was. Or it can be so bad, I leave it alone, but the one I remember, I have not gone back to it.

Actually, I spent more time on that photo than I dreamed of. I cleaned the beach off, then I put it back partly. I just had to force myself to quit, if it had been my photo I would have started over.

I often use the beach as a design element to place the "subject" and that is what I lost by cleaning that whole beach, so then I went to put some back....................

It is just my way with beaches. One would have trouble knowing when I have cleaned some of my beaches as I don't often go during crowded times, and I don't often go to beaches with track marks on them, which I left there. Also, it depends on the tide. (we have like 6 foot tides that clean things off very nicely)

I also, and I would have done this differently if it had been my photo and I had time to think,etc. I put a gradient layer of fog on it, with the dark at the top, using a hard blend. I was hoping to make the dogs look a part from the haze, like they were coming out into the "light" so to speak. I messed up in several ways...................obviously.

ginger (when there is fog or heavy haze I often intensify it rather than trying to get rid of it. But I put it where I want it, for emphasis. Or I use the black channel in CMYK to try to cut through it, but in this case I wanted to emphasize the dogs rather than the background.)

Now, I have given anyone enough ammo to say YIKES, don't DO that. One thing, if I do certain things I have to do it one pixel at a time with heavy magnification so that no one says "why is that line around whatever", I just didn't have time to do anything justice here.

But on the beach, I have been doing it for years, or not, depending. On this shot, I think some things were distracting and should have been cleaned up, but that the dogs needed a firm surface that was beach, so I think we are both right.

I need help, I wanted to go downtown, but I am scared to go by myself......that is why I was hurrying................now I am trying to find somewhere local. The photography and all, the music, it would have been so good downtown, but we started having murders here and there, robberies, about 10 yrs ago. Anyone want to go with me?

ginger_55

That is nice, Khaos, now do you want to go hear and photograph some blues. Cool photography. One of the men is in his eighties and going strong.

g

twinbnj

I like this shot - overall action and expession of the dogs is wonderful.
As far as how to make it look better.....
Black being the more difficult to work with - white in photoshop is far more forgiveing with detail.
Adjusted levels, new layer with levels on Bugsy merge then new layer soft light mode black brush to darken the eyes so they did not stand out so much. New layer high pass - soft light blend. Then just a slight boost on the Hue and Sat.