Project 52 - Week 48: Digital Darkroom

There are times, when taking photos, that despite your best plan, things don't always work out the way you'd like them to work out.  Especially when photographing pets, like cats or dogs.  Movement can destroy a perfect pose.  A dog who might be afraid of a prop, will not give you a natural, happy facial expression.

It's times like these that require editing knowledge, and use of software to make a happy image as close as you can get it to the original blueprints in your head.

Our girl, Lilah, had a birthday this week, and I had a tentative plan for a birthday photo.  It included flower garlands, a subdued little pose in the studio, and an addition of texture to soften the photo.  Here's what really happened.

Lilah was not happy with a flower garland wrapped around her neck.  That was problem number one.  The minute I moved away from her, she would try to remove it.  So I quickly decided the garland had to go, but I did manage to get one shot with the garland placed there, and luckily, that shot was pretty clear in terms of the flowers.  Once I removed the garland, I was able to get Lilah to relax amid the flowers strewn on the floor drop, enough to get a pose I could work with digitally.  Here are both photos ("I hate the garland" and "thank God the garland is gone").

I also adjusted the lighting set up between the first and second image, and used a different angle in terms of the shot itself to bring in more floor flowers.  But I still wanted that garland to appear around Lilah's neck, and I wanted to add something more than just a texture to the backdrop. 

So I searched the web for a free backdrop photo and found this one of a garden arch.

I found hundreds of flower arches, but this one was bright, and seemed to me would be the one to work best as an overlay.  I placed this image over the image of Lilah in "lighten" mode using Photoshop Elements, then used a reveal layer to bring the parts of Lilah's posed photo back into the mix.  I then reduced the opacity of the arch layer to 42% so it blended into the backdrop.

Next I pieced together the flowers from the photo around Lilah's neck in the "Yes I moved" photo over to the posed photo of Lilah by using the rectangular marquee tool, along with edit-copy-paste, and masking off what I did not need to remain of the transferred flower images.  I also used the clone tool to take out some of the plastic stems from the floor garland because they were unsightly and drew the eye in their direction.  I then did some minor adjustments to brightness, white balance, and levels.

Finally, I added a top layer texture called iridescent brush to the photo (again, by placing it over the top of the finished product as an overlay), and reduced its opacity to 57%.  I brushed the texture away from the parts of the image that I wanted to reveal more with a brush set at 78% opacity.  Below is the final image.

Due to the holiday, it's a very short blog circle of two.  Be sure to check out Cincinnati pet photographer, Suzi Pix Photography's digital darkroom blog. I can't wait to see what Susannah Maynard and Mr. Bojangles have in store for us.