PP a few pics, win an internet cookie!

[D.MoralesPhoto]

Hi everyone,

A week ago I shot some "snapshot" style pictures of a friends kids (aka dogs!) and we had a lot of fun playing outside/inside and just taking wild and crazy shots of them. Below I'm posting 3 of my friends' favorites, and I was wondering if I could get any help on PP'ing them to make them really "stand out" and look "memorable."

I did do some PP originally on all 3, but I took it all off so you could see the originals (minus some cropping) and perhaps alter them to your own tastes. If you don't want to do any PP on them yourself, I'd just appreciate some tips in general in regards to getting them to look really great. Thanks for looking!

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Oh ya, and did I mention that I'm handing out internet cookies to the best PP (or best PP tips)?

 

[lunaaa]

not very good at pp just cropped it and
played with the levels and contrast a little.

 

[Audell]

Ok here's my attempt. I really have no idea what I'm doing but I decided to try anyway. All I do was cropped, sharpened and added a cross color effect.

 

[KAikens318]

Did an unsharpen mask, bumped up the saturation a tad, lowered the levels a little so the black came out more and the top wasn't so bright and added a black vignette.

 

[D.MoralesPhoto]

Thanks for the responses! I appreciate them very much. Of the 3, so far my original PP is more like KAikens318's. I suppose I should have posted my PP's first along with the originals...but here they are, so you can see what I've done but please please feel free to use the originals or these and enhance what I've done.

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[KAikens318]

Do I get a cookie? Lol

 

[D.MoralesPhoto]

You may have one....but I need more PP hints/tips/help!

Your reward:

 

[KAikens318]

You may have one....but I need more PP hints/tips/help!

Your reward:

Shoot in RAW if you don't already. CS5 has this awesome little 'clarity' slider that you can use to clear the photo up a bit without sharpening it too much. Also, saturate the colors to make them look alive, but don't do it too much because then you lose detail in the things that you are saturating. Unsharpen mask can be your friend but it can also kill your photo if you go too far.

RAW is always going to be your best friend, whether you have CS3, 4, or 5 or Lightroom or whatever you use for PP. You can do so many things with RAW to clean up the photo, but just remember that you have to get a good shot to work with in the first place which you have done here!

I think you did a great job with the DOF on the 2nd and 3rd as the dog's face is in focus and makes sure that his cute little face is the center of the photo.

Keep it up!

(May just be my monitor, but the cookie looks like dog poop. Haha )

 

[EhJsNe]

Im too lazy too edit all three, but the closeup of the face with the underbite reminded me too much of my dog to not edit it...so heres what I did!

TPF Dog Re-Edit by ~listoman on deviantART If you want the original PSD, you can go there and click download and edit any of the things I did

 

[D.MoralesPhoto]

Thanks for that image EhJsNe, it looks very nice, and I really appreciate you making the .psd file available. I'm going to take a look at it and see what I can learn!

KAikens318, I do shoot in RAW, and thanks for those tips about the clarity slider. I've been a bit hesitant to use it, perhaps just because I'm still very new to the PP scene. I'll definitely start playing around with it more now. And thanks for the compliments, this was my first time that I was shooting for someone else, and even though I wasn't getting paid, I still wanted to do a good job. It's nice to know that someone besides the dog's owner and myself likes these pics!

Oh, and ya, that cookie image is a bit...amorphous...so here's one for you and EhJsNe to share...just don't get squashed lol!

 

[KAikens318]

Lmao, thanks for the cookie that doesn't look like poop

That clarity slider is my new best friend, I am really glad that CS5 has it. It doesn't distort the image either, even if you bump it to 100%. Definitely play with it, I think you will like the difference.

 

[EhJsNe]

I dont want to share a cookie >_<

And its no problem, hopefully you can learn something from the PSD (The Dodge and burn trick is one of my favorite little secrets that can really do a lot for a photo)