Abandoned dog

[J.Dare]

Hi all, I took this photo of my beautiful staff the other day, I adjusted the brightness etc, and i think it gives it a cool but cruel abandoned or lost look effect. But I'm stuck with trying to sharpen her head without sharpening the wires, and also how would i take the flash out of her eyes? I don't have any decent editing software yet, only what came with my camera and whatever there is on Photobucket. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Joe.

[wulf]

I think that, even with top notch software (*), you'd be facing a difficult struggle. It doesn't look like there is much sharpness in the dog's face so it would be tough to do much even without the wires.

Post-processing can do amazing things but, in this case, I suspect you would be better with getting an improved picture to work on first. What type of camera are you using?

Wulf

(*) I'd include The Gimp in that, which you can get for free

[J.Dare]

Originally Posted by wulf

I think that, even with top notch software (*), you'd be facing a difficult struggle. It doesn't look like there is much sharpness in the dog's face so it would be tough to do much even without the wires.

Post-processing can do amazing things but, in this case, I suspect you would be better with getting an improved picture to work on first. What type of camera are you using?

Wulf

(*) I'd include The Gimp in that, which you can get for free

Hi Wulf, thanks. This was only a quick shot and one of my first with a dslr, poor lighting and no thought really went into the picture at the time, so that's the reason why its not as good as it could be., I'm sure i could do better now if i switched to manual mode to focus on the face(not auto mode as it was set as before), and thought about what i was doing. I've updated my signature since, (camera + lense). Thanks for commenting.

[wulf]

You've got capable kit so I even more convinced that it isn't worth spending much time on this photo. The best use of it is probably as a sketch to inform the set up of a future shoot.

I would try settings that would give a fairly narrow depth of field - probably enough to capture the dog's face sharply (probably about 6") but where the cage would be in front of the sharp zone and thus a touch blurred and indistinct. On camera flash isn't ideal, not only because of the pinprick light in the eyes but also because it will illuminate the near bits of the cage far more than your dog.

If you do want to build your processing skills, perhaps you could set up with a tripod. Take some pictures of the dog in the cage with the front off (and there you could use some flash, especially if you diffuse it) and then of the empty cage with the front back on. In that case, you probably would also want the front of the cage in focus but it could be relatively darker, as if you had a lighting set up that could be hidden inside to put a spotlight on your subject.

Wulf