Project 52: Before and After

Several years ago when I started taking my photography seriously, I swore I would never use post-processing and always get it right in camera!!!  Right!  How naive!  It is something I still strive to achieve, but, of course, post-processing is a must!  Presently, I go between Lightroom and Photoshop to post-process.  Most is done in Lightroom, but I’m starting to use PS to remove leashes, blemishes, distracting background, etc.  I took an on-line course last year on PS Layers and do understand them a little better, although I should use them more often.

This past Christmas, I had a client who wanted to photograph her two white dogs for a Christmas card.  She owns a beauty salon and that’s where we took the photos.  She covered her small vintage-type couch with a white sheet, brought in some artificial greenery and holly, as well as a “Merry Christmas” sign.  She even put the decorative bows on her dog.  I picked one photo for the card and, below, is how it looked straight out of camera.  The client wanted a winter-type scene.  Well, we live in Alabama and a white winter doesn’t happen.  I found a product called “Twinkle Blanket” (similar to fiberfill) from Hobby Lobby and fluffed it on the couch.  We then placed the dogs on the couch.  Well, one starting to eat the “snow”, roll around, and, well, just be a dog.  So, as you can see, there’s very little “snow” left.  But I liked their expressions, they were close together (as opposed to on either side of the couch), and they were looking up at the owner.  But I had to do a lot of work.

In PS, I cloned a lot of the “snow”, smoothed out the wrinkles, and cleaned up the dogs, using Spot Healing Brush, Patch Tool, Clone Tool, etc.  The dog on the left, Ruby, only has one eye.  But in this photo, that one eye was covered by her hair.  So I copied a more visible eye from another photo and placed it over the covered eye in this one.  Also, the dog laying down, Moonlight, had a bow that was hidden by the “snow”.  I did the same thing and copied a more complete looking bow and inserted it in the photo.  The result is below.

The photo below is a scan of the card.  (NOTE:  Just in case you wondered, I did not have the watermark on the card)  Perhaps to some in this group this is no biggy and I’m sure you might see where I could have done it differently or better.  But to me it was a huge accomplishment, and the client was happy.

Click over to Linda of DogShotz Photography serving the Indianapolis IN area to see their take on this weeks’ theme.