# Dog Photography Tips and Tricks



## Black Kali

As promised, a thread about Dog Photography Tips and Tricks  I’m not professional photographer but I have some tips and “tricks” I would like to share with you. I’ll separate them in several posts over time. Of course, it would be great that everyone write their tips and tricks so we could all learn how to make better photos of our furry friends, and sorry in advance if there are any spelling errors etc... English is not my first language 

This is mostly for those whose cameras have RAW option, but not exclusively. The beauty of shooting RAW is in non destructive editing (to a degree), but some tips could be useful in general. I assume that you have basic knowledge about photography, by that I mean 3 basic elements Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO sensitivity. If not, here is useful link about that

First, get down  don't shoot from our perspective unless you are doing some specific creative shoot. Avoid cropping tip of the ears (especially hard for us GSD owners  ) tongues, feet… if you are not sure about composition use some common composition rules, when you learn them, you will know how to break them. 

example of bad and good perspective:










example of creative shoot:










Choose a nice spot, without much distractions. You want to isolate the subject, not necessarily with shallow depth of field but background should not be distracting (unless it’s essential for telling a story). 

example of distracting background and how you could edit even that kind of photo to get nice results (I'll explain editing process in next post):










example of isolation with shallow depth of field:


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## Black Kali

Avoid shooting during high sun, it will create harsh highlights and shadows especially if you have black or white dogs.. Most of my photos that I like are created near sunrise or sundown and overcast. If you decide to shoot in high sun (or you don't have a choice) see that you turn your back to the sun so the dog will be evenly lit, or put your dog in shade and face him/her to the sun. You can shoot against sun for some creative effects but that can get very tricky to execute right (especially with black dogs). 

example of bad positioning, resulting with harsh highlights and shadows. It can be edited to look acceptable but it's best to avoid such situation if you can. 










example of shooting against the sun:










another example used to achieve nice translucent feel of the grass:










there are other situations when you could use that technique, but I'll write about that some other time.

It’s always best to keep ISO levels low, but if you need more light (ie. faster shutter speed) don't be afraid to push ISO over 1600 if you have decent DSLR. If you don’t have, avoid using ISO over 800 if you can.

example of noise levels on low end, mid range and high end camera.


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## Black Kali

If you are shooting portrait you could use lower shutter speed but for action shots I usually want at least 1/1200 - 1/2000

example of dog portrait with low shutter and action photo with low shutter settings.










Use right exposure. If I shoot action and dog is moving from light to shadow I usually set fixed aperture, faster shutter speed (about 1/1600 or more) and auto ISO. Be careful with autoiso option on low-end cameras, if you have option to limit upper value, use it. If dogs are posing I usually have time to manually set all the parameters for best results. Be careful with action shots and large aperture (low numbers eg. f1.8) depth of field is very shallow and subject can easily fall out of focus. 

example of bad exposure and editing (note* it is not the same photo, I lost original, but it is successive one so the exposure is same):










example of action shoot with 85mm f2.0 and missed focus because of shallow depth of field and inability of camera to refocus fast enough on erratic moving subject. If I used ie. 200-300mm and f5.6 her head would probably be in focus even though camera missed because of larger depth of field. 










Next step, editing photos. You could use Lightroom, Adobe Camera RAW editor or any other tool that you feel comfortable working with. I use Adobe Camera RAW editor and Photoshop CC. Most editing process can be done in RAW editor but for more complicated editing you have to use something like Photoshop. I’ll cover editing in the next part.


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## Traveler's Mom

THANK YOU! 

Your explanations and examples are so clear that even I, a novice, understand the concepts.

Keep it coming! 

Lynn & Traveler


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## Nickyb

Wow, fantastic write up!!!

I've always wanted to take a class in editing, I am a culprit of over editing some pictures 

I'm actually going to PM you now about something else.


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## Black Kali

I'm glad it's understandable! 

Part 2, editing 

Don’t overlook photos with dull light, even those can be transformed to expressive ones with right amount of editing.










My first step in editing is setting the overall light. There are few parameters to set: Color temperature, Exposure, Levels (by levels I mean few parameters I’ll explain later). You can set them on whole image or paint settings on certain places of photo. 

Color temperature will greatly influence the feel of the photo, so that is usually first thing I edit. If you need correct color temperature photo, find something white or gray in that photo (something you know it’s really white or gray) and select it with white balance picker tool and you will have right color temperature. But that’s not necessary if you want to change the feel of the photo eg. you took a shot in the early morning or at the dusk and it’s all bluish, cold. You can go into greater Kelvin values (greater in RAW editor, not really greater) to get more yellowish-gold overall color to achieve warmer feel and basically create sundown. You can paint color temperature corrections on certain parts of the image if you feel they are not working on the whole image, or you want certain parts to be warmer-colder.

Exposure and Levels are second thing to correct. There are no set rules for that, but one thing to keep in mind is avoiding clipping blacks and whites unless you are doing some type of creative editing. There are few parameters to set: Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites, Blacks and Tone curves. You can edit these parameters on whole image or use adjustment brush to edit certain parts of image. Exposure correction is needed if your original photo is under or overexposed. If you shoot high contrast photos eg. black and white dogs together, black dogs on light background etc you will usually have to correct exposure on either white or black dog, depending which part of photo was used to measure light by camera sensor, you may need to use adjustment brush to paint corrections. Depending on situation and camera-lens combo you may need to use override exposure to slightly overexpose or underexpose while shooting. 

example of light setting (sorry for the 720p my recorder wasn't properly set):


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## KathrynApril

Always fun to see how other people edit their photos. Love your pictures


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## Carriesue

LOVE! See my issue is here in southern California the light is almost always harsh even early in the morning, we don't have a lot of tree cover to get out of it so makes photographing my dark dogs extremely frustrating!


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## Black Kali

KathrynApril said:


> Always fun to see how other people edit their photos. Love your pictures


Thanks! you could write about your technique, it would be great 

Carriesue, I'll make special video about that


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## Black Kali

My next step is noise reduction, sharpening, lens corrections. There are in camera corrections but if you shoot RAW you should adjust that in photo editor. I’m usually doing initial color noise reduction in RAW editor and again on final or near final edit using photoshop Topaz denoise plugin for fine tuning. You could do everything in RAW editor but result are not as good. Sharpening is something I do last, before saving. I use Photoshop smart sharpen filter. 

*note, I don't always denoise in the end, sometimes I do it in the middle of the process if it is to distracting


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## KZoppa

This is great.


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## KathrynApril

Black Kali said:


> Thanks! you could write about your technique, it would be great


I'm clueless when it comes to making videos. I did one time do a before/after via my phone but that was about it.


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## Black Kali

Chromatic aberration (or color fringing): without getting into much detail about physics of chromatic aberration, let's say it is inability of lens to bring all wavelengths of color to the same focal point/plain. There are two types, longitudinal and lateral, and they can be present at the same time. 

Lateral CA is most prominent in high contrast areas toward corners of the frame. Every lens has it to some degree, and while it is most noticeable in high quality lenses, It’s commonly present in low quality lenses, and fisheye/wide angle lenses (even high quality).

Example of my 70-200 f4 IS. It has about 6 µm Ca. There is no visible CA in the center, only at the corner of the image, and that is visible only at 100% crop.










Example of three high quality lenses and Lateral CA measurements (by DxOmark.com) :




























Longitudinal CA (bokeh fringing) is most visible in out of focus areas. It can be reduced by stopping down the lens. E.g. I use 85mm f1.8 prime lens and it is prone to longitudinal CA in wide apertures, but stopping down even to f2-f2.8 will reduce CA to barely visible. This type of CA sometimes result in creative light on your photos but usually you would like to remove it, at least from the subject. 

I’ll show you how to remove CA in editing. Auto CA removal can be destructive because it looks for certain hues and desaturate it. So in the first part of video you will see how that impacts colors of her tongue and in the second part you will see how I usually override that , by masking that part to use original unedited colors. 
Carriesue, I know you are using 85mm f1.8 Canon, so this could be especially useful to you.






**note:* I could use option box Remove Chromatic Aberration, but it is usually not enough.


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## Bella67

Love this thread. Thanks so much!


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## Black Kali

Tip for overcoming a “problem” of shallow depth of field. 

If I want to take a photo of two dogs that are in different planes relative to camera ( e.g. one behind another ) with wide aperture on relatively small distance I’ll run into the problem. Because of shallow depth of field one of the dogs will be out of focus. To illustrate that, let's say I’ve photographed subject with FF camera, 85mm 1.8 lens on f1.8, and distance to first dog is 2m (6.5 feet), second dog is 30cm (12”) behind. If I focus on the eye of first dog, only 3cm in front and 3cm behind the focus point will have acceptable sharpness, so there is no chance that second dog will be in focus. 

*Calculation is based on Online Depth of Field Calculator










So how can we overcome that problem?

we can use smaller apertures e.g. f5.6 and greater distance from subject e.g. 5m instead of 2m, and that will give you around 1.17m of DoF, which is enough for both dogs to be in focus, but we’ll lose nice blurry background.

we could take two photos, first focused on dog1 second on dog2 and connect them later in photo editing software.

Here is the example of editing:





Note* it can get a bit tricky and noticeable, depending on the background and distance between subjects, so it’s not perfect solution.


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## jaudlee

Black Kali-

I have a Flickr of ALL of my photos of my mostly black (tan) german shepherd as well as my friend's husky. Any suggestions as to my photo taking?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

there is the link if you want to flip through a few 

I love taking the photos!
I am from massachusetts so we get winter and summer photos
-I currently have a canon t3i


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## Black Kali

*jaudlee*, I've looked first 4-5 pages of you Flickr stream. Beautiful dogs and scenery. I have some suggestions but bare in mind that I'm not professional photographer so take my advice with a grain of salt. 

1. I would suggest that you use dedicated hard drive for your photos, not the Flickr account. Take as many photos as you like but choose few that you like most and upload them. I usually take between 150-500 photos per session but I only choose few (5-30) that I like most, and the rest is either deleted or saved in some folder. As my photography skills progress, I take less and lees photos per session, because I already know some shoots will not look ok.

2. Go to the first page of this thread and take another look on post about perspective and busy background. You have some nice creative shoots on your stream but there is bunch of snapshots from high angle. 










3. Do you shoot RAW or JPEG? You should shoot RAW and edit your photos, it seams to me that you upload them directly form camera? Go to the first page and take a look to the video *setting the overall light*.

4. Think about your photos before you take them. Think what would you like to shoot, portrait, action etc... if you want portrait, think about that from which angle does you dog look best?  what would be the background? something not to distracting, remember, you want all the attention on your beautiful dog. If you want to show us lake where your dog is playing with his buddy, find the best spot from which you will show us all the beauty of that place, choose a nice lit spot and call the dogs to play there so you could take action shoots of them in nice scenery. 

This two photos are created on the same spot but from different angle of view. As you can see, first time I choose a nice spot and you can't tell that a dog is actually in urban area surrounded by buildings.










Another suggestion, buy additional lenses. There are some nice cheep lenses e.g Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM and 50mm f1.8, it could make huge difference in your photography.

If you have any additional questions feel free to ask.


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## Black Kali

*jaudlee*, I've looked to your Flickr stream again, but this time from 45th page instead 1st  I can see you have some great photos there and with little editing they would be phenomenal. Again, great scenery, I'm jealous


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## jaudlee

wow I appreciate you taking the time to look!

The reason I use flickr is because I share the account with my friend (owns the husky) for our dog's instagrams haha it is just an easy share/upload spot mutually beneficial.

-I shoot in JPEG because of the file size and when I shoot I take hundreds at a time. I do not have a good photo editing program anymore as my Macbook got wiped clean when it crashed  otherwise I would be in RAW format. 

-Still a beginner here for sure, but im learning slowly!! I really appreciate your time and tips  Im going to be learning a bit more on the lenses that I have now and then will look into those that you suggested!


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## jaudlee

Yeah we share the account and have two totally different cameras, most of the pictures of the shepherd I tend to take but we also take pictures of each other's dogs. I love this thread I hope more people give some input. I took a bunch of photos messing with the manual settings yesterday I will be uploading in a few hours!
-Some wonderful scenery around where I live. It is my favorite hobby (going to different parks) and shooting photos so if I can improve upon this I would be ecstatic!

I will continue to follow along

If you want to check out the instagrams of our dogs they are 
-German shepherd is @roorootheasshole
-Husky is @gabbysibe

If you do check them out make sure to comment so I know who you are!


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## gsdlover91

Wow, THANKS a ton for compiling this together! Its no secret I have admired your photography skills for a while now...

Maybe one day I can take some photos that are half as good as yours!


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## gsdsar

Ok question. I can occasionally take wonderful pictures. Lol. 

It sounds as if you take most of your pictures using a low aperture and high shutter speed 1/1600? The only way my camera will do that is in very high light. 

I use the basic stock lens on my Nikon it's a Nikkor 55-200 mm 1:4-5.6G ED. Is this not fast enough for your type of set up? I also have a Nikkor 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6 G2. 

I try to shoot when not super sunny, dusk, dawn cloud cover. But I can't get the speed high enough, my camera says "not enough light".


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## Black Kali

*jaudlee*, I don't have Instagram account but I'll follow you on Flickr.


gsdlover91 said:


> Wow, THANKS a ton for compiling this together! Its no secret I have admired your photography skills for a while now...
> 
> Maybe one day I can take some photos that are half as good as yours!


Thanks! I'll try to find time to write more, and I really like your photos too  you have a good eye and beautiful dogs


gsdsar said:


> Ok question. I can occasionally take wonderful pictures. Lol.
> 
> It sounds as if you take most of your pictures using a low aperture and high shutter speed 1/1600? The only way my camera will do that is in very high light.
> 
> I use the basic stock lens on my Nikon it's a Nikkor 55-200 mm 1:4-5.6G ED. Is this not fast enough for your type of set up? I also have a Nikkor 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6 G2.
> 
> I try to shoot when not super sunny, dusk, dawn cloud cover. But I can't get the speed high enough, my camera says "not enough light".


Try lower shutter speed, 1/1000-1250 and use higher ISO values. Shutter speed really depends of the type of action, it can go as low as 1/400 for some slow movement. Depending on your camera, you can go to really high values of ISO e.g. 1600-12800 and have decent quality photos. I've used 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM on 7D (crop) in dusk, rain, forest etc, ISO was 3200 and it is noticeable on crop cameras but it can be corrected. 

See the example, Canon 7D | 250mm | f5/6 | 1/1250 | *ISO 3200*:










and this is, Canon 5D MK III | 100mm | f3.2 | 1/1250 | *ISO 10000*:










As you can see, color noise is most noticeable in dark areas of photos, and on hi-end cameras it is barely noticeable even on ISO values as high as 10000. So, try stepping up the ISO and stepping down the shutter and see how it goes. I'll try to make another in depth video about noise reduction so I hope that will help.


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## Black Kali

*Editing high ISO photos*

this example was shoot at 4am ( before sunrise ) | *ISO 12800 * | 1/800 

original:









and with final editing, noise reduction and sharpening 









video of editing process (sorry it is a bit fast). I've used topaz denoise, but it can be done in RAW editor with Noise Reduction





For me, removing color noise is a must and It's the first thing I do in Raw editor, but sometimes I leave monochromatic noise, it can be useful and give distinctive feel to photos. So it really on depends what I want to from final edit.


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## jaudlee

It is amazing what you can do with your photos! I have started editing a few of my photos (JPG) because my card does not suffice for the amount of photos i take with the sheer size of RAW images yet. What is your flickr name so i can check them out!


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## jaudlee

I'm going to be taking the dog on a hike later with my camera and will be looking to take some photos in the woods. I see your photos and your advice to others. You said to lower shutter speed, but my dog is like a bat out of **** 24/7 so that makes for a lot of blurry photos


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## Black Kali

jaudlee said:


> I'm going to be taking the dog on a hike later with my camera and will be looking to take some photos in the woods. I see your photos and your advice to others. You said to lower shutter speed, but my dog is like a bat out of **** 24/7 so that makes for a lot of blurry photos


Sorry I missed your comment  well you don't have much choice there, if you don't have enough light and your lens aperture is not very wide, either you max out ISO and have grainy photos or you set lower shutter speed and have blurry photos.

Which shutter speed did you used?


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## Roy Leon

Some beautiful dogs! Any breeders in Las Vegas or California?


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## MythicMut

Black Kali said:


> As promised, a thread about Dog Photography Tips and Tricks


This is really great. I just got my first DSLR a big step up from a "Sure Shot" and it does have a RAW option. Thank you so much for taking the time to compile this.


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## Black Kali

I hope it helps. If you have any questions feel free to ask  

Another interesting tool I found, Bokeh simulator & depth of field calculator. It can give you better feel about correlation of sensor size, focal length, aperture and subject distance.


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## MythicMut

Should you overexpose or underexpose for black dogs?


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## car2ner

neither. You really don't want to "blow out" your highlights, turning them into white with no data. Under exposed you may have trouble pulling out the details later. What you really want to watch for is where the light is coming from. I've had trouble finding my dog's face in his black mask when the sun is behind him. Turn him sideways to the sun or have the light source reflected back towards his face and you can catch the shine in the eyes and the highlights on the nose and the glow in the fur. 

And thank goodness for beefy software with sliders that can tease out info that you may not see in SOOC.


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## MythicMut

Thank you Car2ner!


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## Nova12

I absolutely love this thread. I have been looking for useful tips to improve my photography, but i have a kit lens (55-200mm) so the quality isn't all that great. I was thinking about getting a new lens though, and wanted some feedback as to which would be better.

I have always wanted the 85mm 1.4 or 1.8. But I can't decide between that or the 50mm 1.4. I also really enjoy macro so i was looking into the 100mm 2.8. 

My question for you is which lens you think would be best to get. I have been stuck as to which one would produce more pleasing results.


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## car2ner

Maybe you could look into renting a lens for a weekend. See if it gives you results you want for the type of photos you love to take. Good glass can be so expensive.

By the way, I shoot mostly with kit lenses. You can still do some great stuff with basic lenses.


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## RZZNSTR

Cool info. Now that I have a black GSD!


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## Black Kali

Like *car2ner* said, best option is to rent lenses and see what is best for you. 

Both lenses are good, 85 1.8 and 50 1.4, so it really depends on your shooting style what would be good for you and that is something no one can tell you. You would usually need at least one wide lens and one telephoto (or zoom). 100mm 2.8 Macro is phenomenal lens, especially L version I made some great shots with both versions L and non L.

Are you on crop or FF?


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## Black Kali

I'm not sure if any of you are interested in videography, but anyway, I wanted to share some thought about that.

I'm still testing equipment and techniques, so most of my videos are just that.. test videos  combination of nature/macro shots with shots of my dogs with some nice ambient music. 

For Canon DSLR users there is possibility to shoot RAW video using Magic Lanten firmware. It is a bit complicated and it could harm you camera in very very rare occasion, but it brings your videos to a whole new level. I've used ML on my Canon 60D, 7D and even now on my 5Dmk III without any issues, but again, *if anything happens insurance wont cover it*. 

Why risk it? Well, I love editing my photos so I shoot RAW, and I love to have that possibility for my "moving pictures"  When you shoot RAW video you can edit your clips in lightroom od RAW editor (one frame of a clip) in the same manner like your photos. 

Latest video, recorded in the past year with main actor, Brick . Enjoy  






And a few unedited, RAW photos form that video, just to see the difference.









If any of you are interested in this topic I'll be glad to share some tips.


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## RZZNSTR

That was quite cool! You do good work!


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## Jenny720

Black Kali said:


> I'm not sure if any of you are interested in videography, but anyway, I wanted to share some thought about that.
> 
> I'm still testing equipment and techniques, so most of my videos are just that.. test videos  combination of nature/macro shots with shots of my dogs with some nice ambient music.
> 
> For Canon DSLR users there is possibility to shoot RAW video using Magic Lanten firmware. It is a bit complicated and it could harm you camera in very very rare occasion, but it brings your videos to a whole new level. I've used ML on my Canon 60D, 7D and even now on my 5Dmk III without any issues, but again, *if anything happens insurance wont cover it*.
> 
> Why risk it? Well, I love editing my photos so I shoot RAW, and I love to have that possibility for my "moving pictures"  When you shoot RAW video you can edit your clips in lightroom od RAW editor (one frame of a clip) in the same manner like your photos.
> 
> Latest video, recorded in the past year with main actor, Brick . Enjoy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And a few unedited, RAW photos form that video, just to see the difference.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If any of you are interested in this topic I'll be glad to share some tips.[/QUOT
> 
> I enjoyed this these were great!!! Such cool moving pictures. Tips are always appreciated


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## Black Kali

*"white grass" tutorial*

As promised, tutorial on "white grass" 

before you start:

- choose a photo that was shoot in diffuse light conditions (overcast would be great) 

- avoid busy photos, for example, avoid trees and flower, sky etc

As you will see in the following video, we want to create milky, translucent feel of the grass, almost as it was shoot in infra red spectrum. To achieve that, you will have to desaturated greens and yellows (or any other color that you grass is composed of, sometimes there is a hint of blue). In my case, subject is black dog with shiny reflective coat. That means that his coat would appear bluish because it reflects some of the sky color. You could leave it as is but we want almost BW photo so we should desaturate a bit of blues, pink or any other color that you see is reflected. Saturation value could be -100 but if you want a hint of colors, go between 0 and -100 and see where you like it most. 
Next step is to make the grass lighter and less contrasty. You should change luminance value of greens and yellows around 100 (RAW editor tab (HSL/Grayscale) )
Then, make radial filter, or paint with Adjustment Brush and bring up Shadows and Dehaze a bit, or even bring up Exposure, until your grass looks bright and milky. Make sure you don't overexpose your grass. 

Next steps are more about editing photos in general, contrast, exposure, levels, colors, denoise, sharpen... I've covered that in previous videos.






Red forest photo was done using similar technique. Some hue changes, split toning and masking unwanted color changes.


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## Stonevintage

Wow. Thank You! That was amazing. It's like watching an artist paint. I had no idea there were so many steps but I also had no idea there were so many features in Photoshop.

I came across a Photoshop kit at a thrift store a couple of years ago. It's an older version (Anniversary Special Edition). It's going to be better than what I have now (Picasa 3) which does very little. My camera's a cheapie and older too (Canon SX 130 so I may hit a snag there too) Had to look up what RAW is after you mentioned it and I read where several people had tried to download a RAW converter app to work with their Canon SX130's but were unsuccessful. Hopefully the version of Photoshop I have can accommodate. It's got the manual (thank heaven) so we shall see!

I'm excited - thanks to you!


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## Black Kali

Canon SX 130 doesn't have RAW capabilities, if I'm correct. It only shoots JPEG format. You can hack your camera to enable RAW shooting, but that's not for everyone  

You can still use RAW editing features in Photoshop by enabling them to open in RAW editor. Of course, JPEG and RAW files don't have the same levels of information in them, so your result won't be as good as it would if you used RAW file.


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## Stonevintage

Well darn... My camera is just for shooting photos for products to sell online so it does the job for that. I think I'll put a bug in the pawn shop guy's ear that I need something better - I get some great deals out of there. Thanks!


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## Black Kali

A quick tutorial that I done for Bella67  

Photo credit: Bella67
Model: her beautiful puppy Jethro :wub:


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## EldenSays

Thanks for sharing. well done, really useful tips.:grin2:


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## mburitica181

You're an amazing photography and I bet you have a great model to practice on! Love the grass picture (and your editing).


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## kaigsd

what camera did you use?


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## DeanNing

I used Sony Cybershot DSC-TX5 camera for photography. I think you should try this one.


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## Soldes

It probably has been said here many times, but utilizing the early morning sun light, or the sunset rays directly bathing the subject matter; can "pop" out the colors of your dog, and make them much brighter. Even-though we own a Nikon D500, the best pictures of Red are those impromptus shots taken by my I phone X.
The enclosed sample is a Non Photoshop enhanced Pic of our 21 month male, directly facing the morning sunlight.


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## Jenny720

Yes such gorgeous photos I follow on Flickr. I remember this thread. I was talking about this thread in the other link that also mentioned some tips @CometDog mentioned some helpful YouTube videos. I have watched some in the past it does take time to click but the YouTube video posted a good start.


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## isabellamor

It took me some years to get a dog.
This is Bullet the new member of our family.
I am so happy that he had managed to adapt to his new environment faster than I expected.


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## ebbiethomas

I have a Nikon D5100. So if I shoot pics in RAW mode, what free software is available to edit them ?


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## dojoson41

Black Kali said:


> As promised, a thread about Dog Photography Tips and Tricks  I’m not professional photographer but I have some tips and “tricks” I would like to share with you. I’ll separate them in several posts over time. Of course, it would be great that everyone write their tips and tricks so we could all learn how to make better photos of our furry friends, and sorry in advance if there are any spelling errors etc... English is not my first language
> 
> This is mostly for those whose cameras have RAW option, but not exclusively. The beauty of shooting RAW is in non destructive editing (to a degree), but some tips could be useful in general. I assume that you have basic knowledge about photography, by that I mean 3 basic elements Aperture, Shutter speed and ISO sensitivity. If not, here is useful link about that
> 
> First, get down  don't shoot from our perspective unless you are doing some specific creative shoot. Avoid cropping tip of the ears (especially hard for us GSD owners  ) tongues, feet… if you are not sure about composition use some common composition rules, when you learn them, you will know how to break them.
> 
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> example of distracting background and how you could edit even that kind of photo to get nice results (I'll explain editing process in next post):
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Thank you for the info


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## dojoson41

thanks for the info its a great help


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## car2ner

ebbiethomas said:


> I have a Nikon D5100. So if I shoot pics in RAW mode, what free software is available to edit them ?


darktable will convert RAW. GIMP is a open source editing program


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## Woodstock69

Great information. Thank you for your post.


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## IamIstiaque

Is it allowed to post dogs illustration in this section? I have some german shepherd illustration to post this forum. But I'm not sure whether I can post the german shepherd illustration or NOT.


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## Fodder

IamIstiaque said:


> Is it allowed to post dogs illustration in this section? I have some german shepherd illustration to post this forum. But I'm not sure whether I can post the german shepherd illustration or NOT.


Photos of illustrations are allowed as long as its not for advertising / solicitation. You can start a thread in Pictures or Chat Room.


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## Hiningla

Thank you so much for sharing this post, from your post i learned so many thing on dogs photographer, your explanation on photography is very nice.


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## Jeanette Scheiern

Black Kali said:


> If you are shooting portrait you could use lower shutter speed but for action shots I usually want at least 1/1200 - 1/2000
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> Use right exposure. If I shoot action and dog is moving from light to shadow I usually set fixed aperture, faster shutter speed (about 1/1600 or more) and auto ISO. Be careful with autoiso option on low-end cameras, if you have option to limit upper value, use it. If dogs are posing I usually have time to manually set all the parameters for best results. Be careful with action shots and large aperture (low numbers eg. f1.8) depth of field is very shallow and subject can easily fall out of focus.
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> example of action shoot with 85mm f2.0 and missed focus because of shallow depth of field and inability of camera to refocus fast enough on erratic moving subject. If I used ie. 200-300mm and f5.6 her head would probably be in focus even though camera missed because of larger depth of field.
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> Next step, editing photos. You could use Lightroom, Adobe Camera RAW editor or any other tool that you feel comfortable working with. I use Adobe Camera RAW editor and Photoshop CC. Most editing process can be done in RAW editor but for more complicated editing you have to use something like Photoshop. I’ll cover editing in the next part.


Thank you so very much for taking the time to write, and explain in detail on photographing our pets❤🐾 I am a novice , that being said. I understood and took notes. Your dog and photography are gorgeous!
Thank you for all the tips! So very helpful. We have 3 Black & Red German Shepherd’s, Their red is so deep, it’s hard to see in a photo. In photos they can look black & tan  
I’m not sure how to remit that issue. If you have any suggestions. Please share with me. Once again,
Thank you!
Jeanette


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## Jeanette Scheiern




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## drparker151

Research using an 18% gray card and doing white balance correction to get true color.


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