Before & After In The Darkroom

Before & After In The Darkroom

Working on images in a "digital darkroom" such as Photoshop CS4 is a powerful tool to take a photo you may have normally thrown away and transform it into a masterpiece.


One of my students in my "Fundamentals of Composition" photography course that I teach at the Perfect School of Photography posted a plea for help in our Question & Answers message board. Here is what she wrote:

"As some of you know, 3 weeks ago I lost my little kitten Amber. She got out of her cat carrier at the grocery store, hubby did not see that the carrier was empty. He opened the door to put groceries in and she flew out the car. We have been looking from daybreak to after dark for her with no success. At only 13 weeks old, there is not much hope for finding her. I am not even thinking about the coyotes, foxes, fishers, bears, bobcats, etc. that would consider a 13 wk. old kitten as a snack food.

So after searching this long, I am finally accepting that she is gone for good. I have 2 pictures that I had taken of her that I like a lot, but she is in the base of my Ponytail Palm and the leaves are in the way. Would somebody be willing to clone the leaves out and send me back the photos? These pics are only small thumbnails, I would send the full size to whatever email address you give me. I would really appreciate it, and I suck at cloning so bad."

I wrote her a quick reply that she could send them to me and I will see what I can do to help her, for most likely these may be the only two photos she has, and I can certainly feel for her on the loss of this cute and adorable kitten. She sent the two high resolution versions of the images, and I began to work on them in Photoshop. Here is the before and after of them:




Here is the original photo of Amber. Notice the distracting palm leaves not only in the background, but they are also falling across her ears and whiskers. The image is also a bit dark and most notably the eyes seem dark and lifeless.





A couple of hours of working on the photo in Photoshop to remove the palm leaves that included some cloning, patching and repair the delicate whiskers has greatly improved this photo. Notice how the image is also a bit warmer in temperature, overall the image was brightened and the eyes are now a vibrant blue that draws our attention. Also I burned the corners to further the effect of narrowing our focus on the eyes.





On the second photo, pretty much the same as on the first photo of Amber. The one thing that is good on both however was the composition as they are both filling the frame nicely and the rule of thirds was also followed for a pleasing composition.





The same exact techniques were applied to this photo as in the first which totally transforms an ordinary photograph to one that she will cherish forever to remember a lost friend.


So the lesson learned here is before you click that shutter button, pay close attention to not only your subject, but a simple rule of composition which is your background. By doing a little "clean-up" of removing the distracting elements you will save hours and hours in your digital darkroom removing them. Sometimes we are so focused on our subject we fail to "see" the whole picture, so training your eye to pick up on those elements will certainly go a long way.

Want to learn more in-depth about backgrounds and how to take your images to the next level? Then join me for the most comprehensive course taught on the internet about composition today! Click here to learn more about "Must Know" Fundamentals of Composition.

Robert La Follette
www.robertlafollette.com