My first time - Beautiful dog portrait

LucyQ

LucyQ

Messages
53
Name
Lucy
Edit My Images
Yes
1-40.jpg


Beautiful dog, not beautiful portrait taken by me I mean! :LOL:

Please be gentle, but what do I need to do to create a more stunning, more gorgeous effect? I have used photoshop a little on this - I try to not overdo it. Already I think the background isn't ideal, I do love the expression I've caught - she's a very noble girl and here is on the lookout out of the window.

Should I always use portait orientation, or can landscape work?
 
Last edited:
It needs a wee sharpen and a slight tone adjustment but as your edit box is crossed I can't show you.

A less busy background would help if possible or a background with less similar colours would do the trick. I don't know what focal length you used but I'm guessing it was the Sigma as if you don't have a fast lens then you must have been using a longer focal length to throw the background out like that. The more you can throw the background out and isolate the subject the better it will look for a portrait style.

Here's a similar angle etc that I did with my Beagle. If you can really throw the background out and sharpen up your subject (being the dog) then it makes them stand out a lot more.

beau-closeup.jpg
 
Last edited:
gman said:
It needs a wee sharpen and a slight tone adjustment but as your edit box is crossed I can't show you.

A less busy background would help if possible or a background with less similar colours would do the trick. I don't know what focal length you used but I'm guessing it was the Sigma as if you don't have a fast lens then you must have been using a longer focal length to throw the background out like that. The more you can throw the background out and isolate the subject the better it will look for a portrait style.

Here's a similar angle etc that I did with my Beagle. If you can really throw the background out and sharpen up your subject (being the dog) then it makes them stand out a lot more.
Click to expand...

Beautiful, and you have made the actual quite busy background blur out so well.

How do I uncheck my edit box? I'd like to do that :D

Thank you for the feedback, I just used my Canon 18-55mm regular lens, but yeah the Sigma in the past has done wonders with the background, maybe I should use this in the future for portraits, I just struggle to keep it so still when I don't have my tripod around, and find this really frustrating!

Could I actually make the blackground less sharp using the gaussian blur option on cs5 together with a layer mask and use the sharpen function on her face etc.. or is that cheating and should I be really using more on camera functions to do this in the first place?

(I'm currently interpreting on a digital graphics course and have learnt a lot about photoshop;)).
 
LucyQ said:
How do I uncheck my edit box? I'd like to do that :D
Click to expand...

If you click on Quick Links near the top of the page and then Edit your details

the last option on the page is whether to allow others to edit your images... just put a tick in there (y)
 
Rudders said:
If you click on Quick Links near the top of the page and then Edit your details

the last option on the page is whether to allow others to edit your images... just put a tick in there (y)
Click to expand...
:ty:
Here I have sharpened it as much as I can without the grey specks (it still doesn't look as sharp as I'd like, must have been my hand, or my camera ;)).

I have blurred out the background, but worries it has given the whole picture a more blurry overall look, what do you think?

Before:
1-40.jpg

After:
1blurredmore.jpg


What can I do to the tone?
 
Cool, here you go, just an auto tone adjust and a sharpen in Photoshop:

edited.jpg


I reckon it'll be very difficult to make a photoshop blur look good because of all the hair/fur involved, there's pretty much no clean lines and achieving it through your lens will be much better. The Sigma at the longer focal lengths and a fast shutter speed should do the trick even if it's around the f5.6 mark (longer focal length will increase dof effect).

A good rule is that you should match your focal length with your shutter speed to prevent camera shake. I.e. at 200mm your shutter speed should be 1/200 or faster, if you are at say 80mm then it would be 1/80mm or faster etc. (mind to bring in the crop factor though, so 200mm on your crop camera is actually 200 x 1.6 = 320mm so you'd need to use a shutter speed of 1/320. This is just a rough guide though.

Hope this helps!
 
Wow that's really sharp!

Thank you so much for your advice and help, great about the focal length/shutter speed matching, good tip (y).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top