Rachel Sloan Photography

I love this shot of Josie sniffing out field mice with her cute tail in the air.  The fall trees and horses look so pretty in the background.  I didn’t love the gloomy sky and lack of golden sunlight that day.  This is shy I love photoshop so much…

Meet Bubbles.  He was at the Bigwag party on Saturday.  He might not be a dog, but that doesn’t stop him from walking on a leash like one!

I’ve gotten several emails lately asking how I process my photos.  Sometimes I edit a photo a lot, and other times I only do a couple of things to it.  I’m a big fan of sharpening certain parts of the photo, usually eyes.  Here I tried to keep the emphasis on Bubble’s head, while keeping the background blurred using a layer mask with gaussian blur.  I sometimes use actions or a combination of actions, but usually it’s my own editing.

(click to enlarge)

A crop up of the little guy’s head…

I think it’s all about experimenting to get the look you are going for!

I’ve been playing around on The Pioneer Woman’s blog tonight.  I like her because she writes in a way that is easy to understand, and she has a good sense of humor.  I was inspired to try some new editing techniques after poking around on her blog, so I experimented on this photo of my dad’s dog Lily.  I’m pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  Sometimes I get lost in Photoshop, then realize an hour has gone by since I looked up from the computer or blinked.  I guess it’s true what they say – Time flies when you’re having fun!

So you can see them larger…

Whatdya think?  I’d love to know.  :)

I met 3 great dogs yesterday named Harley, Hercules, and Huckleberry.  I’m still working on their photos but here is a sneak peek of my progress.  Harley and Hercules look very much alike and I hope I have gotten it correct that this is in fact Hercules.

There are several things I like about this photo…

• Hercules’ expression
• I like how the tall grass almost makes it look like Hercules is playing peek-a-boo.
• The image is in focus (that definitely doesn’t happen on every shot, especially with dogs!)

Here is what bugs me about this photo…

• The icky grey tint most digital photos have straight out of the camera. (I have recently discovered new tricks to fix this.)
• That rock wall isn’t in the middle, but it’s also not far enough to one side to give the photo any extra interest.  I don’t like how it’s only behind his little ear.  I think it needs to be more behind him, or not there at all.
• I don’t like that blade of grass right in front of his tongue.
• The image needs to be cropped so that Hercules fills up more of the frame.

AFTER 15 minutes in Photoshop…

If I could, I would  mess around in Photoshop all day long and learn new things.  I think it’s the coolest invention ever.  I’m still trying to figure out my specific “style” for processing photos, and I think I’m getting there.  Whenever I have a bad or stressful day I just sit down at my computer, open up a photo and go to town on it.  It’s art to me…and I hope other people think so too.

And just for fun…head over to my friend Jamie’s blog for a little glimpse of our double bachelorette weekend.

While making some new headers for my blog it occurred to me that I haven’t done a “before + after” post in quite a while.  The first photo is Scout before any editing, straight out of the camera.  The second photo was enhanced in Photoshop and I removed his eye gunk.  I love this picture.

I’ll have some new photos to share next week.  I’m looking forward to my session with Abby and her mom Ashley tomorrow!

There is a subtle difference between these 2 photos.  Can you tell what it is?

I’ve been practicing my photoshop skills lately so I decided to do a “before & after” post.  I still have a lot to learn, but I am quite proud of what I did with this image.  The light was not ideal when I took this photo, so the colors were not very vibrant.  I thought it might look better monochrome, so I applied a sepia tint, cropped out some extra space so the paws would be centered, feathered the edges, and then sharpened the image.  Happy Friday!

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