black cat

Camera Nikon D90
Exposure 0.04 sec (1/25)
Aperture f/2.0
Focal Length 50 mm
Focal Length 50.4 mm
ISO Speed 500

I was at my buddy's taking some pics of his new pit bull puppy and his cat gave me a serioius stare for awhile. So i took a few. I like how her eyes really stand out but don't like how I'm missing so much detail in the fur.

Jake,

A great stare but that's just the start! You obviously want more. Cat's seem a favorite subject for trying out lenses. That annoys me so much that initially we had a rule, "No cat pictures!", LOL!

It's also a good subject for artistic photographs. That's where you want to go! Lighting is as important here as for any other photography. That's what models the image to have volume and texture. We light to do that and also to show edges by glancing rays and reflection.

Simply have a light on one one side above and to the front of the cat. Drop down to it's level and that will often give you a better angle. Set your camera to + 1 stop and bracket + and - 0.5 stop as a start.

Good luck,

Asher

Steps:

1) Fix colors in rgb mode. Look at the white patch. It's cold (meaning negative values for "a" and/or "b" using LAB readouts). It should be neutral or warm.

2) Duplicate layer and Apply Image Green channel to top layer. Top Layer goes to Luminosity mode. If you examine the channels, the green channel is the best. Blue channel is a bit noisy. And the image is neutral (just black and white), so use green channel for a luminosity blend.

3) Flatten image and save - cattemp.psd.

4) Go to CMYK mode. CMYK is great for dealing wth blacks. Lots of detail in the black channel. So curve the black channel (lighten it) to bring out more detail. Remember, that in CMYK, the curves are reversed to RGB.

5) Go to LAB mode. Save Image as cattemp2.psd.

6) Duplicate Layer. Change top layer mode to Multiply. Add a mask to the top layer. Apply Image Green Channel from cattemp.psd. (You'll likely to have to open cattemp.psd.) We use the green channel because of the green eyes. We want to green eyes to intensify but stop the blacks from being multiplied.

7) Blur the mask using Gaussian blur. If you are using your original file, use a blur radius of something like 40 pixels. On your jpg image, I used 6-10 pixels, I don't recall.

8) Add a curves layer and adjust the lightness channel to taste. I found the interface between the white and black fur somewhat challenging. So pay attention to that area.

9) Flatten and convert from LAB back to RGB.

10) You're done.


Hint: If you want to improve upon what I have have done, do the following:

11) In RGB mode, place cattemp.psd on the bottom layer. Place your finished file (cattemp2.psd) on the top layer. Using masks and opacity, blur the two together to get your desired result. If I were doing this, I might be inclined to use more of the "original" (cattemp.psd version) white/black fur interface area. I'd leave most of the rest of the image as the final version. But that is something you can play with.

12) Once step 11 is complete, flatten. Then duplicate layer and multiply with a layer mask on top layer. Using the mask, only multiply the bottom right hand side to go to nearly complete black. It's not an area of interest. Instead, make the viewer focus on the face.

Kevin,

You have improved the picture! Is all this from Margolis' book?

I like the separation of concepts. In the first step, you're in RGB mode but looking at the LAB values. What tool do you use for adjusting color as there are many choices, histogram, curves, channels etc. Also why not just look at RGB values as 220,220,220 would be just as white!

Still, lighting dimensionally would be best in the first place!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

You have improved the picture! Is all this from Margolis' book?

Click to expand...

Yes, I believe his book covers this topic, as I recall one example where he brought out more detail from a black object. His videos at Kelby Training also have an example where he brings out more details from black and white cats--unwelcomed guests he called them. He found these cats on his porch doorstep.

Asher Kelman said:

I like the separation of concepts. In the first step, you're in RGB mode but looking at the LAB values. What tool do you use for adjusting color as there are many choices, histogram, curves, channels etc. Also why not just look at RGB values as 220,220,220 would be just as white!]/quote]

When I look at the "white patch"in the original photo, I see rgb (183,195,204) and using LAB readouts, I see (78,-3,-6), meaning slightly green and slightly blue.

I use LAB readouts in RGB mode to quickly determine where colors are off. And then I use RGB readouts to bring color back into alignment. So I added a curves layer in RGB mode, I increased the red curve, left the green curve alone, and decreased the blue curve to zero on having all three channels read 195. And then I continued on my merry way.

Click to expand...

Still have to do something about the iridicent glow of the black hairs on the snout... but for starters this is OK.

In crude steps, the works:

1. started of with the RGB image, but applied the 'wrong' aRGB profile. That upped the colors a bit.
2. applied a levels adjustment and lowered the gamma value, so lightening up the fur without loosing the blacks or whites.
3. converted to Lab
4. compressed the color histogram a bit using curves, and filled out the luminocity histogram on the white side.
5. used another curves adjustment to selecively brighten some colors.
6. converted to RGB
7. took care of the slight blue-cast by white-balancing it using the curves eyedroppers.
8. once more into Lab to blur the chroma-noise out of the color-channels, and to despeckle the L-channel.
9. back to RGB again to sharpen the image using a deconvultion layer on hard-light mode.
10. flatten the whole thing, change colorspace to sRGB and save.

voila.

False message...ignore

I had a little stroke of genius by something Kevin mentioned. The green channel does have the best definition... so why not apply it to the image (the image becoming a grayscale version of the green channel), lightening that using a lower gamma, and then substituting the L* channel in another copy in Lab-mode with this lightened image...

Immediately crept behind PS, and this is the result:

I like this a lot better than the one using my previous method. Faster, sharper and less colorcast and noise to begin with. This one is not denoised or resharpened in any way, it has just a little colorboost, done in Lab. I think I could get even better definition by not using levels' gamma slider but curves to target the fur.

OK, final try, I pried out as much detail as I could without causing terrible banding... Instead of applying the green channel, I made a 'more than 100%' mix of the red and the green, while giving blue a negative value. after that, I curved my way to an RGB B&W version that had max detail (all done with re-adjustable layering). This I applied to the L channel of a copy, and after that it was the usual tweaking. I gave the eyes a little more saturation than the rest of the picture.

I could have done something about the blown white in the chest of the cat... maybe a hair-brush, ore some smudging... but it's late now and I'm going to bed. Cheers!