Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => Discussing Photographic Styles => Topic started by: BobDavid on January 22, 2012, 07:47:27 pm
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This dignified dog deserved a fine portrait. I knew that her picture would not be "good" until it had gone through a serious Photoshop session. http://bit.ly/xYJfwN
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Too much is one Photoshop adjustment more than you need to accomplish your goal. Your vision here is perfect.
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Napoleon would have paid you a fortune! :)
I like it. When the dog is gone the owner will really appreciate not being reminded of its health problems near the end. It will always be full of life in that shot. It is a good deed in my book.
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as near to perfect as it gets.
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Wonderful image and well processed. Certainly worth doing. I would say mission accomplished, a well done portrait.
Alan
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simply awesome :-)
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I have to agree with all the others. This is very beautiful, and perfectly (and appropriately) processed.
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+1
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At first glance, it's a strong image. I really like your black and white treatment. Pushing the contrast a bit and emphasizing the fur really makes this a more dramatic and interesting image.
My preference would be to not completely eliminate the leg sticking out. Allowing it to fall into deep shadow and perhaps de focusing it more than the original, while keeping it subtly visible would work for me. But then again I have an almost obsessive preference for documentary photography. (I often do very extensive retouching for the advertising photography my company produces, but when it comes to my personal work, I am reluctant to even move a piece of trash out of a shot because it breaks the documentary aspect of the image.)
On the technical aspects of retouching, I feel the way you have de focused and removed the leg is a bit too evident. There is a bit of blur where the leg extends from the body that seems unnatural and thus gives away the retouching. The eyes in the retouched version are certainly clearer and more alive than the original, but I feel as if there is something just very slightly off about them. I would be inclined to overlay the original eyes and fiddle with the transparency to keep a small amount of the actual look of the dog. Maybe my approach is inappropriate here... I guess I would rather see some of the "faults" and see the real individual dog than see an idealized version that didn't fully capture the dog's personality.
In answer to your subject line, I think the photoshop goes just a little too far here for my tastes, but it really depends upon what most effectively commemorates the dog to whoever loved her.
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On the technical aspects of retouching, I feel the way you have de focused and removed the leg is a bit too evident. There is a bit of blur where the leg extends from the body that seems unnatural and thus gives away the retouching.
I wonder if you would you have thought that if you didn't have the original shot next to the tweaked shot?
Impossible to say as you cannot unsee it.
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If the subject line hadn't called attention to the fact that the original poster was a bit concerned about the amount of retouching, I probably would not have looked at the image deeply enough to notice the retouching. But on closer inspection, the leg is pretty obvious (I do enough retouching to know what's going on here) and the body position seems slightly off if the hind legs are tucked under the body. But I would not have been able to tell if the eyes were replaced.
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There is definitely a question about "where is the rest of the dog?" in the retouched picture. You've made the dog look like a Corgi, Otherwise it's really quite nice.
It's only too much photoshop if you think it's too much photoshop. This is your call, and depends entirely on what you want the picture to accomplish. If the photoshopping is obvious, the viewer will react to the picture quite differently. If the photoshopping is not obvious, but the picture is nonetheless off-kilter, and feels a little "wrong" then the viewer will look at it in yet another way. If the result looks perfectly natural, you get a third reaction.
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I like the B/w tones and sharpness. But your friend seems squeezed too much. Needs some breathing room. Nice shot.
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There is no too much, you just have to do that