Digital Darkroom

Welcome again to the international pet photography blog circle.  This week our theme is Digital Darkroom, and the aim is to show how our use of digital darkroom tools have an impact on our images. First up is one image of Spike edited in a few different ways, starting with the image straight out of the camera and then six variations. These digital darkroom enhancements allow me to completely customize any image depending on the tastes of the pet owner, the mood of the image, the expression of the pet, or any other need the image presents.

For contrast I’m also including a flawed image from an old camera test for low light exposures. It’s underexposed and noisy, the white balance is off, the background is cluttered… these were never meant to see the light of day, but I LOVE Maddie’s expression. Rescuing this image was possible thanks to digital darkroom techniques that undid all the bad things: exposure and colour correction, noise reduction, background replacement, and recomposition.  The application of various techniques and an alternate composition was another fun way to preserve this pouty face.  This kind of digital darkroom adventure is a bit more complex, but I love the challenge and they’re really fun to do.

Let’s go see what the magic San Diego Pet Photographer, Karla Ogilvie has created in her digital darkroom this week, then we’ll follow the links around the circle.