This is Thomasina, shes a very mellow cat. Back about 7 years ago my daughter dressed her up with some doll clothes and took a few snapshots. I wanted to recreate that image but only had the glasses and the hat. Well the hat wouldn't stay on but I got a few good shots with the glasses.
Cloned out a few stray hairs, saturation,shadow/highlight, contrast, sharpened, resized and saved for web.
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First let me say congratulations on a new personal best. I have to say that you are doing extremely well for someone that has entered only 5 challenges. At the rate you’re going you will be getting high 6’s and 7’s very soon.
First impressions:
When I first say this picture I thought that the color was dull and needed some contrast. Then I saw the background and thought there was too much going on.
The Fix:
Here is my suggestion as how to make this photo a bit more interesting. Now I’m not sure what your original really looks like but from what you have so far (the picture you uploaded) you should have boosted the contrast up to somewhere around +34 and lowered the brightness to about -6.
Looking at you’re camera settings I would say that you used indoor lighting probably from a ceiling light or desk lamp which is fine. You did the right thing by setting the ISO to 800 and choosing a good shutter speed. What you might try to do is shoot your pictures more during the day when the sun is strong and lighting is good. Let the light poor through the windows but watch out for harsh, hard lighting hitting your subject. If you do this method of lighting make sure that you soften up the light by using something like a white sheet.
If you would like more information on lighting just shoot me a PM and let me know.
As far as your BG goes, I would suggest using something dull that makes the subject really pop and stand out. Now I understand that it’s hard sometimes to get the shot you want in real life situations and trying to set up the same shot in a fixed situation. Here’s what you do. If it’s just a picture for something besides a basic editing challenge on DPC, the sky is the limit. You could completely remove the background, blur the background to bring more focus to your subject, you could even distort the background. If the picture is for a challenge here on DPC and its advanced editing you might want to try a levels adjustment to darken or lighten the BG again allowing more focus on your main subject.
In any case I have to say that you are doing fairly well. Keep up the good work and as always If you have any questions or comments feel free to PM me anytime.
LOL Very cozy looking picture, my cats would never allow this to be taken :P. He's a good sport I see. Nice composition, though the background is busy it's also complementary.
Awwwwwwwww. . . .How CUTE! I can not beLIEVE you got your cat to cooperate with wearing glasses. My cat would have been kicking those suckers off before I even got to my shutter. And he is still enough that allowed you to get 3-dimensional sharpness. Way to GO!
too cute, would have liked to have seen a little less background noise though. Very deep rich colours though on the puddy cat and very easy going to have let you put specs on!
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