The eyes

[JJthethird]

This is my first post, all critiques welcome. It was taken with my Olympus E-500, and it is my first attempt at dSLR photography. Whats your opinion?

[Saralonde]

Wow, were those eyes added in PS? Definitely grab your attention! I like how you got nice and close to your subject. Lighting seems pretty good, too. Having owned a black cat, I know how hard it can be to get the proper lighting on that black coat.

BTW, welcome JJthethird!

[JJthethird]

Thanks for the welcome Saralonde. Yes, the eyes are edited (only in the Microsoft Picture-it package that came with my computer bundle). The original picture was one of those that you would normally delete immediately, but as this is all new to me I decided to play about with it and see if I could get something worth keeping from it.

[Saralonde]

Definitely made an arresting image. It's amazing what you can do with an ordinary image.

[JJthethird]

This was the photograph before any editing was done. I hope that what I did improved the image?



Thank you for the feedback,

John.

[knickers71uk]

well only my opnion of course but yes i would say you improved the shot, i love what you did!

[yurik]

I think it's great too, really "eye-catching" (*groan*)

But if you're asking for critiques, I was suggest that you play around with the right eye. That light reflection looks over-processed and make it seem less real. I would suggest trying to clone that out and see how it turns out

[JJthethird]

Thanks for that, at the minute I dont have a great editing suite, I can't really do any cloning with the software that I have but am going to buy PS as soon as I have the spare cash. On looking at it again I see what you mean. Thanks for the advice.
John.

[yurik]

If you don't feel like paying for photoshop (and with this ridiculous price tag, there's nothing wrong with that), then you should try Gimp, a free text editor.

Personally, I've only briefly looked at gimp, but I know many swear by it.

I'm sure someone could back me up by posting some links to some tutorials.

[Nicole]

Many of the photoshop tutorials can actually be translated to the same steps using the Gimp. There is also GIMPShop, which more closely resembles photoshop in how it is setup. But, there are also heaps of tutorials specifically for the Gimp, available on their website. There are also posts on the forum, like this one "Gimp Open Source (and Free)". Hope that helps