EDIT YOUR WORK

Your pet portraits aren’t finished until they’ve been through the digital darkroom

Pro James Kelly is a whizz in the editing suite, bringing life and character to his subjects with adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop.

His unique dog photography service, Black Hound, specialises in capturing unique original portraits of fluffy family members, but James’ images wouldn’t be complete without careful post-processing, too.

Here, he shares his editing workflow with us. The adjustments start off on a basic level, with a boost to the exposure and contrast. The main aim is to bring out clarity and detail in the key elements of the portrait (the eyes and the fur). After that, the overall colour balance and hue of the background is tweaked. If your own images are shot outside, for example in a park, edit the backdrop to get rid of unwanted items such as twigs or bits of litter.

To advance things, James takes plenty of time to retouch in Photoshop and remove anything that distracts from the final portrait. “This part is what will take your image from a shot anyone can take, to a piece of art that requires patience and effort.” Make sure to use adjustment layers when making edits, and you’ll be able to remove any tweaks you made if you change your mind throughout the process or overdo things.

“One last step I love to apply to all my images is a dodge and burn layer,” James adds, “to introduce some lovely depth within the fur.

It’s these actions that really make the image stand out, and as it’s not being applied on your original image you can create multiple layers to get the desired result without destroying your original photo.”

“Eyes are what draws the viewer in, so I like to overexaggerate the clarity of them”

SHARPEN AND CALIBRATION in Lightroom i apply sharpening and use the masking slider while holding Alt to see the areas that will be sharp. Play around with the calibration sliders to get a colour mix that feels just right.

LOCAL BRUSH ADJUSTMENTS cover the eyes and fur with a brush, increasing the exposure and clarity. eyes are what draws the viewer in, so i like to overexaggerate the clarity and brightness of them.

CROP IMAGE i start in Adobe Lightroom. having selected the photo to edit, i first like to rotate and crop the image, making sure the eyes are level and that the subject is positioned in a strong composition within the frame.

BASIC ADJUSTMENTS Within the Basic tab, i tinker with the temperature and tint, and increase exposure and contrast. i reveal more detail by decreasing the highlights and white levels, but increase the shadows and blacks. This brings out more fur data.

HSL COLOUR TWEAKS i experiment with changing the background into a shade that best complements the dog. here, i decided that a purple shade is the route to go down and adjusted the sliders accordingly. final colour tweaks will be applied later in Ps.

POST-CROP VIGNETTING This part is subjective. some people hate the look, others apply vignetting to everything. With the vignette, the image pulls me in, with the dark edges really making the dog the hero.