"It's a hard life" - warning, cat

[FunkyNige]

...pic


It's been a while since I've posted a pic so here's one I took a few days ago of the old man Sid -



Scratches and marks are from the scanning.

Edited to resize the pic down to 750 pixels wide.

>> Edited by FunkyNige on Thursday 30th June 18:50

[bilko2]

brilliant expression, looks like he's just done 15 rounds and gone down for the count. maybe a play with levels and/or curves to bring out the b&w a bit more.

[simpo two]

Great pose but yes, it looks awfully flat.

(The picture, not the cat...)

[joust]

Dare I suggest this "level and crop"?



>> Edited by joust on Thursday 30th June 23:14

[size13]

I think the original with the window in the background gives the picture some late afternoon after a hard day hunting type of atmosphere.

[diddyman]

Just taken this picture of the dawg...

[simpo two]

size13 said:

I think the original with the window in the background gives the picture some late afternoon after a hard day hunting type of atmosphere.

Agreed. OK Nige, post the original and let us play

[FunkyNige]

simpo two said:

size13 said: I think the original with the window in the background gives the picture some late afternoon after a hard day hunting type of atmosphere. Agreed. OK Nige, post the original and let us play

I'll scan a higher res version tonight when I get home from work and bike lesson, though the image in my post isn't edited at all apart from a bit of cropping.

[FunkyNige]

Well I haven't got a clue what's going on, I think my scanner is far too complex for it's own good. There are lots of correction things to play with (gamma, contrast, highlight, shadow, etc.) but no 'just scan the damn picture as I took it and how it appears on the enlarger' setting.

Link to pic anyway -
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2407/sidmk29ip.jpg

I used GIMP to save it as a lower quality image to get ot down from 7 meg to 350k.

[simpo two]

FunkyNige said:

I used GIMP to save it as a lower quality image to get ot down from 7 meg to 350k.

Congrats - but it's still b/w!

[FunkyNige]

simpo two said:

FunkyNige said: I used GIMP to save it as a lower quality image to get ot down from 7 meg to 350k. Congrats - but it's still b/w!

Sorry about that, I couldn't find the 'turn a black and white picture to colour' button

One of the disadvantages of shooting on Black and White film I suppose.

[joust]

Here's one take. Steps were

Crop
Two applications of "Sharpen more"
Level adjust to spread histogram correctly - slight midtone tweak to increase contrast
Paint mask with very soft edge to cover background, not cat
Lens blur at radius 100 to push background out of focus even more
Whilst background still selected, change levels to increase contrast
Flip selection
Levels just on cat and foreground to bring out highlights

Like it?



J

>> Edited by joust on Saturday 2nd July 16:14

[simpo two]

FunkyNige said:

One of the disadvantages of shooting on Black and White film I suppose.

I never thought of that...

[rich 36]