New puppy playdate shots (it's the photog forum is a dialup warning necessary?)

[lukasahero]

So, I digested all the advice given to me here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=280x48923 and went out for another try. Here are the results:













Better? What do I work on to improve these?

I'm finding my dog the hardest to photograph well. She never sits still for one thing but the thing I'm having the hardest time with is her black face and ears, her brown eyes and the white snow. It's hard to get any detail on the face without overexposing the snow. Any advice on that one?

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Oh, how cute.

You're doing quite well with the snow, I think. I always find it hard to make the snow white instead of blue. :)

[lukasahero]

2. Thanks - that was the big thing I learned from my first post

Now I think I'm overexposing the snow... Grumble grumble... (In some places it's almost 'green'...)

You obviously take a lot of shots in the snow, any secrets about how to bring out the details of dark objects without getting blinded by the snow? (I've got a few months of snow to shoot in so I might as well try to get better at it...)

[Blue_In_AK]

3. It's really tricky.

I usually end up spending time with PaintShop (I'm a Corel fan) to get it right. There's a function called "fade correction" that can help quite a bit (although not always) or sometimes the "histogram stretch," I think it is, or even the color balance will occasionally fix it. I just play with different things until I'm satisfied with it. I'm sure Photoshop has similar things, but probably called something different.

[lukasahero]

4. I've been using GIMP lately

and I have seen the fade thing there. I'll have to look into how to use it. Histograms are beyond me though. :P Thanks for the tip!

[northofdenali]

6. I thougth the snow shots were good, too -

snow can be tough. Lots of times, it's easier to get better shots in snow when it's a little cloudy or overcast; you don't have to work through the added brightness from sunlight, and the added shadows on top of it all!

[Celebration]

5. I really love these pictures!!

Because of the snow, I decided to see if I could fool around with one of them. But honestly, I never pay attention to my monitor settings, and it isn't too great anyway, so I never really know if something just shows up better on my monitor or it is something more universal. I really need to figure that out.

Anyway, here is what I did with your second one. On my monitor, but maybe not yours, the snow shows up a little bit better. I have an old HP photo editor. What I did was increase the orange/red just a tiny bit, and then go back and fool with the brightness and saturation. But the problem with doing that with the sandy dog in it, is the sandy dog probably looks a little too red. You would have to judge 1. whether this is just an issue with my monitor and 2. if that affects the color of your dog too much around the mouth. It is just that on my monitor the snow looks better.

Your pictures make me smile a BIG smile.

I have no experience with Photoshop. Does it allow you to change settings on parts of the pictures?