Cats Whiskers ! ! !

[Tysonator]

Hi All,

can someone please let me know what technique I need to look in to produce clear cat whiskers in a Fine Art post process image ?
As I would like the the cats whiskers to be more defined, clear and brighter ! ?

I use LightRoom Vr 8.1 and Photoshop Vr 20.0.01 and I will say I am ok using LightRoom and know very basic PS as I mainly use the Clone brush, and Focus stacking.

Examples below before and after

 

[Nod]

Shooting wide open and focussing on the eyes is bound to render anything not on the plane of focus soft. Short of focus stacking (not really an option!), I'm not sure there's a solution without increasing the DoF which would introduce its own compromises.

 

[LCPete]

Yes agree with Nod it’s a situation I’ve often been in
There’s not an easy answer but I would always shoot at just enough depth of field to get the cats eyes and nose in focus which will include the whiskas even if it means raising the ISO

 

[Tysonator]

Depth of Field is always an issue as in this situation the particular situation the cats where in pens and though the light is front lite. It was being diffused a wire mess behind me on a half brick wall and foliage in the pen. Plus my EOS 7Dii, a crop senor DSLR will always struggle in low light and we good not used LED light panels or flash. As the cats are rescue and some are shy and weary.
The face image is actually blend of 2 images as the nose was slightly out of focus from the eyes. This was a cause of low light and being relative close to the cat so the DOF does not increase with distance from camera to subject. If I was 5-7 meter back I would have used my 70-300L f4 - 5.6 IS USM therefore I would by default had more DOF as f4 changes up around 135mm

So if I did have enough DOF what is the best technique to render the whites and detail of the whiskers on a black fine art back ground ! ?

 

[JackBell]

I got this after a quick effort. In PS, I cropped and then increased overall contrast using levels, then set the burn tool to 'shadows' at 'exposure 45' and painted the black in, even if you go slightly over it won't affect the fur/whiskers as they are highlights and you have selected 'shadows' to burn in. Obviously the more time and care you take the better the job would be.

 

[Tysonator]

I got this after a quick effort. In PS, I cropped and then increased overall contrast using levels, then set the burn tool to 'shadows' at 'exposure 45' and painted the black in, even if you go slightly over it won't affect the fur/whiskers as they are highlights and you have selected 'shadows' to burn in. Obviously the more time and care you take the better the job would be.

Yep,
that works pretty well.
I will give this a go once I have done all my adjustments in LightRoom I will do final edit in PS,
cheers for for taking the time and effort

T