shine pet photos | modern pet photography

I met Sasha and her owners in the gorgeous Playa Vista community this past weekend. As you can see, Sasha is a beautiful poofy Chow Chow! It can’t be easy wearing pounds of fur in hot and sunny Los Angeles, but Sasha was such a perfect model and a trooper. Note to all you dog photographers — buying a cheapo plastic water dish to bring on outdoor shoots might be the best (and easiest) investment you can make!

So thanks to the hot sunny weather, Sasha definitely got a bit drooly during our photoshoot. This is when knowing how to retouch out junk you don’t want in the shot is definitely reaaaaaally helpful. In this case, because Sasha’s fur has so much texture to it, simply using the clone tool isn’t enough. In addition to the clone tool, I cut out a chunk of her fur, pasted it onto a new layer, lowered the opacity, and used layer masks to blend everything together.

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I processed a few more photos for my client and her doggie Delana this weekend. I love this gorgeous little dog!

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I actually had to do quite a bit of retouching on all of Delana’s photos. Small fluffy dogs tend to get dark stains around their eyes and mouth, and no amount of grooming can ever really get rid of it. I LOOOOVE photo retouching (which I think is a completely different beast than post-processing aka color and exposure correction) so I don’t mind doing this extra bit of work for clients. Check out this before/after set.

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I think the best way to do something like this is use lots of layers, and use the clone tool sparingly. Meaning, change up the opacities on the brush and use the most transparent value possible otherwise things will start to look really streaky and fake! The key to photo retouching is knowing when to stop — otherwise you’ll end up with something that looks completely unnatural.

Isn’t it funny how even photo retouching DOGS makes them look 10 years younger? No wonder celebs are so addicted to it! ; )

I am a self-proclaimed Photoshop whore.

Ever since I started using it back in 2000, I’ve been addicted. But when it comes to my photography, I always try my best to get everything right in camera as much as possible.

Unfortunately sometimes my best isn’t well, the best. And that’s when I have to do some processing tricks to get the photos looking perfect. I use a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop to do my processing and I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend that you try this out if you haven’t yet.

Why? Because Lightroom speeds up your overall processing so much. I consider it “Photoshop for Dummies” — you just slide bars around to achieve the look you want and there’s no complicated masks, layers, and blah blah blah. But the thing is, oftentimes you NEED those complicated layers and masks and things (and really, they’re not so complicated once you get the hang of them).

What happens if everything in a photo is gorgeous and properly exposed, but the dog’s face is not? You take it into Photoshop, create a layer mask, and make the dog’s face looking right while everything else is hidden. Can’t do that in Lightroom.

And what happens if everything else in the photo is perfect except for a piece of trash you forgot to move out of frame before you shot? You take it into Photoshop, do some pixel pushing and remove it. Can’t do that in Lightroom.

The following are a few before + afters of photos I recently processed that needed some extra work. I feel naked showing my “before” photos. Really, really naked. But hey, I think every photo needs a little extra work once it comes out of the camera. And these really demonstrate the great results you can get when you combine the power of Lightroom + Photoshop.

(By the way — I don’t use actions or presets. I’ve tried using them, and they’re just not for me)

Lightroom: Removed yellow color cast, increased overall brightness

Photoshop: Increased brightness of Max’s face

Lightroom: Removed green color cast, added some detail back into the clouds and brought back details in Max’s face

Photoshop: Further exposure correction in Max using layers and masks

Lightroom: Removed yellow/green color cast

Photoshop: Increased saturation and detailing in wood floor; brought back details of Dottie’s face; corrected exposure of Rob and Anne

Lightroom: Fixed white balance, brought out more details in wood floor and railings, added saturation

Photoshop: Added in sky from a separate image; increased details in wood; corrected exposure of Rob and Anne in a separate layer

Some photography purists HATE the idea of retouching a photo. I understand why photo retouching might be a big no no for something like photo journalism, where you’re reporting news and the photo is a visual representation of that news.

But as far as commercial photography goes, I personally think that retouching is essential. The goal is to end up with a perfect photo — so if retouching is going to take a good photo to GREAT, then I’m all for it! Of all the professional photo shoots I’ve art directed for my advertising clients, I’ve NEVER not retouched a photo after the shoot.

For the cover shots I took for Tails Magazine, I ended up doing some significant photo retouching on one of my favorite shots. Mochi’s pose was great, and I loved the way the lifeguard stand looked in the background. Except one problem — he was looking the wrong way! I pieced together elements from other photos I had, and ended up with one solid image.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Find your base photo — the one you need retouched. I’ve highlighted the areas in the image below that need to be fixed in order for this image to be perfect and ready for the cover of a magazine!

Step 2: Find other photos shot under THE EXACT SAME LIGHTING CONDITIONS to use as your reference images. I stress THE EXACT SAME LIGHTING CONDITIONS, because if you don’t, you’ll end up with an image that looks really, really obviously photoshopped.

I cut out the head from the above reference image, and carefully MASKED out the elements I didn’t want (NOT ERASED. NEVER, EVER, ERASE BITS FROM YOUR IMAGES! You never know when you might need the data back. MASKING is your best friend!) Mochi’s nose in the original photo sticks out a little far to the right — so when you replace the new head, you still see a bit of the original nose!

Most people would reach for the clone tool to try and clone in bits of the lifeguard stand to take out his nose. But using the clone tool to remove his nose would take long and would probably end up looking blotchy and cloned. The better — but harder — thing to do is to look through all the images you shot and see if there’s a reference photo of the background that you want.

Copy and paste it in, distort it to match the perspective of your original shot, and mask out the pieces you don’t need. Voila — the Corgi nose is gone, and it looks really, really good.

Step 3: Remove the leash. I very carefully used the clone tool to do this. The trick to using the clone tool, is to use it very, very liberally and very, very carefully. This is to avoid any blotchiness and patterning, which are dead giveaways that you’ve used the clone tool. Another trick to the clone tool is to make sure you use a VERY VERY soft brush, and play around with difference opacities. Zoom in AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE when you work, so that you’re truly only cloning out the points you need removed. And lastly, if you do end up with some blotchy bits, try to see if you can smooth them out using the blur tool.

AND THAT’S IT! I’ve glossed over a lot of parts to this, but if you need any more tips or advice on retouching, please feel free to contact me. I’d be glad to try and help.

Here’s Mochi looking straight at the camera, and no leash in the photo! What a handsome fella.