Lucy: Before and After

[k9mom]

Last week we lost our dog, Lucy, to illness. I wanted to create a special photo in her memory using one of the old images I had taken of her before the degenerative neuropathy had claimed her beauty. Unfortunately, all the older photos I had of her were taken with a Canon PS A70 point and shoot, so I had to make the best with what I had. Here are the before and after photos, modified using Paintshop Pro (cropping-->B&W conversion using channel mixer-->overlay color layer atop B&W layer with visibility to 20% to create desaturation-->sharpening the eyes-->Gaussian blur of a duplicate level, visibility about 20%-->saturation enhancement of the eyes via a separate layer-->spot cloning to fix white spots in eyes). Does the desaturation/selective color enhancement of the eyes improve or detract from Lucy's photo?

Before:



After:

[lputman]

I am so sorry for your loss....

IMO, the desaturation is good but if you could bring back a little bit of vibrancy for the green, it would be better since that color wasn't completely removed.

[mswebb]

Nicely done! Needs a bit more work but in this case, you have made a wonderful memorial.

From my dog Lucy and myself, condolences.

[KathrynWilson]

So sorry about your dog

I find that in the second one I miss the warmth and vibrancy in the grass and, more importantly in her coat.

Although the shadows are distracting a little bit, I think a nice warm color pop and crop would be all you need:

[dlaf]

I am so sorry about Lucy It was 2 years ago this past weekend that we lost our beloved Ramsey.

I love Lucy's face and would like to see the grass green--because she's a dog and needs that green grass!

[k9mom]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. It appears to be unanimous about the green grass, so green it shall be.

And thanks all, too, for your condolences and kind words on our loss.