As I was playing around with the 100mm macro lens that my favorite boy toy lent me, I took pictures of all kinds of things (you can see more of them here and here).  Because I was learning to use it, at one point I switched back to my regular zoom lens for comparison and in the process, took a picture of the Vizsla on the deck.  The lighting was all off, but when I reviewed it later, the composition was good and I decided to see if I could salvage it.

So here’s the original:

Whatever I was metering from, the dog is too dark and the background is too light.  I should have changed over to spot metering and blown out the background.

Using Lightroom, I corrected the lighting as best I could, cropped it down, and got this:

It’s not a bad photo, but the vertical beams on the deck railing bother me and so does the fence in the background.  I think it would have been better with a background that was totally unrecognizable.  I added a white vignette to it, which helps somewhat and draws your eye to the middle, which is his beautiful head and gray muzzle.

To experiment, I took the picture into Topaz Black and White.  I used the sepia presets and played with it more to successfully fade out the background.  Because he’s already brown, the sepia worked nicely, leaving some color in the head shot.  I also put a frame around the picture, using the eyedropper tool to pick a color in the picture.  In this case, I used his fur and thought it matched nicely for a frame.

Ten years or more ago, I took an on-line class for Photoshop Elements (probably version 2 or 3).  One of the class projects was converting a picture to black and white using the selector tool and then putting a frame around it.  Frames weren’t automatic and you had to use layers to make one.  I was and remain proud of that photo of my baby Vizsla.

Color restored using a mask, with added vignette and border in Photoshop Elements

Black and white done in Photoshop Elements

Original, adjusted for brightness and contrast

Can you tell that we never ever let him up on the couch?

Here’s some pictures from three years ago.  There’s some gray on his muzzle, but not much.

One of the contradictions I have with nurturing my creativity is spending enough time with the dogs.  They are quickly growing old and I don’t want regrets that I shut myself away in my home office after working all day and spent more time with the computer than with them.

Lately, my routine is to sit on the couch after supper and cuddle them until they’re reading to leave.  I’ll have a Vizsla plastered to my hip, a miniature pinscher on my lap, and a beagle sitting near my feet to get petted until he’s had enough.  That seems to work for all of us.  After about 30 minutes (give or take), they’re all ready to go to their beds.  They’ve had enough attention and when they leave, I go work on my pictures or my blog.

It was fun nurturing my creativity by salvaging a poorly lit but well composed head shot of the dog.  It was also fun to look at the old photos and show off that I have been post processing photos for a long time now.

To see everything I’m doing with my 31 Days of Nurturing My Creativity, click here.

To see what others are doing with their 31 Days project, click here.

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