What's new
By:
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Enhancing photos to help foster dogs get adopted, please help!


She gets around almost as well as any other puppy; sometimes I feel so bad for her but she's such a happy girl that I can't feel bad for long around her. The rescue group she is going to says that she is a 'celebrity' right now. I was a bit worried about getting her adopted out but I'm starting to think that she might find a home quickly.

Here's another shot of her from today. Look at how she's leaning downhill without a problem. I so need to photoshop something into the picture that she's 'looking' at.

IMG_0136 Edit.jpg
 
ha! Love it! I went back and looked at the original photo as I couldn't remember if I cropped it or not. But, it's the same size. I need to shrink down a pic of a big dog or horse or something and put it in there to make her look like a giant!
 
Well, I dropped Petunia off yesterday and cried my eyes out for the rest of the day. :( She's on her way up north right now. I sent some of the pics taken of both dogs to my sister; she said that the dogs were too shiny and that she had a hard time making out their features. I tried to adjust the shine in the photos but can't figure out how to make it look right. Do you guys think the shine should be decreased and if so, how do I do that? Also, here are some pics of Petunia:
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0162 Edit.jpg
    IMG_0162 Edit.jpg
    341.1 KB · Views: 20
  • IMG_0181 Edit.jpg
    IMG_0181 Edit.jpg
    322.4 KB · Views: 20
I actually do think the shine should be brought down quite a bit. It doesn't look "doggy", if you know what I mean.

I played with the second picture. Copying it from the post is low-res so the results aren't perfect but it shows what I mean.


IMG_0181 Edit copy.jpg
 
Sierraccr said:
I played with the second picture. Copying it from the post is low-res so the results aren't perfect but it shows what I mean.
Click to expand...

Yes, do share the steps you used. Thanks a lot.

This attempt is all done with layer adjustments and a selective gaussian blur (filter>blur>gaussian blur) to reduce the areas of shine further. In looking at it posted (and it always seems a bit different online than in PS) I would increase sat on the eyes. Let's see what sierra says about her technique!

Reposting after making a slight levels change to heighten the eye color.
 

Attachments

  • petunia.jpg
    petunia.jpg
    89.1 KB · Views: 14
Last edited:
I wanted the dog to look soft and huggable. :)

There's nothing terribly technical about my technique. I copied the picture in a new layer and reduced the contrast (on the copy) right down to nothing several times because I couldn't reduce it that much in one go. Each time I also decreased the brightness so as not to wash out the color. Used a VERY slight surface blur and a very small soft healing brush to get rid some of the color noise that is always left over with that much manipulation (some color noise is still evident in the ear - I missed that). Then added a layer mask to the copied layer so that I could return eyes, white flash on the dog's chest, and background back to original state. They didn't look quite natural after all that mucking about with them.

I'm all about getting these puppies adopted, so if you want my help with some of the other pictures, you only need ask!
 
Oh, and by the way here the second picture.

I used different technique on this one. I used the steps as above, but used the blur tool on the leaves because they were so busy and detracted from the beautiful dog.


IMG_0162 Edit copy.jpg
 
Thank you both for your help! Using what you guys suggested, I was able to reduce the shine. And, yes, I would love some help with the pics. :)

Here is another attempt. Criticism is welcome as it helps refine my work!

IMG_0181 Shine Removed.jpg
 
Select colour range grayscale 200 fuzziness select invers, now combine with original image using multiply with the settings at 60 and 70 % respectably.
 
Here's that first picture of Petunia. My aim is for these to just look like great pictures of cute dogs, so there isn't much more I can do with it without making it look unnatural or overprocessed.

This one took a little more work. I opened it in camera raw, which I think has better exposure adjustments. Sharpened it with the high-pass filter trick and did some color adjustment to the eyes and to the pillow.

Are there other pictures you want some help with?

Petunia2 copy.jpg
 
Back
Top