Tuggie Turns Two

[jcuknz]

A final question, CIC friends. Did I do ok removing the 'snowball' in front of Tuggie in the second crop? Any suggestions for improvement there? I'm working on learning about those techniques.
Thanks, Diane

I do not really see the need to remove the snowball and definitely not the way you did it which creates an obvious duplicate of the area just above but great that you are using your editor. Rather than simply cloning the area under the mouth to cover the snowball a better way would be to copy the hair on the right of the mouth and paste it twice to cover the snowball and then erase the unwanted areas ... I tried to do this but it is late for me and I was making too many mistakes using the cloning technique of copying from one layer and then changing layers, paste onto another layer .... tricky and easy to forget which layer one is copying from/pasting to ... anyway I scrubbed my effort and am off to bed ... sorry

In the first crop I feel it is unbalanced with too much foliage left in the image and with that amount you need more space on the right. I do not like the second as it is cropped much too tight for me.

[luvaneezer]

I love this shot Dianne for its crispness, light and especially the subject. I like the original and the crops but I would personally leave the snowball in the shot. It makes it look like she's been given an ice cream cake for her birthday.

I love your comment, Graham - a little snowy birthday cake. Thank you for your comments about what made this work for you too - helps me figure out what contributes to a good shot. I appreciate you taking the time. Diane

[luvaneezer]

I do not really see the need to remove the snowball and definitely not the way you did it which creates an obvious duplicate of the area just above but great that you are using your editor. Rather than simply cloning the area under the mouth to cover the snowball a better way would be to copy the hair on the right of the mouth and paste it twice to cover the snowball and then erase the unwanted areas ... I tried to do this but it is late for me and I was making too many mistakes using the cloning technique of copying from one layer and then changing layers, paste onto another layer .... tricky and easy to forget which layer one is copying from/pasting to ... anyway I scrubbed my effort and am off to bed ... sorry

In the first crop I feel it is unbalanced with too much foliage left in the image and with that amount you need more space on the right. I do not like the second as it is cropped much too tight for me.

Thanks, J - I certainly need practice on manipulating areas of photos - I will try your suggestions. Regarding cropping, it sounds like what would work for you is something between One and Two. I will play around with that. The "too much on the left" in the first crop is a result of my trying to use rule of thirds and moving her image to the right. I'll play around with it more. Thank you for helping me!
Diane

[jcuknz]

The "too much on the left" in the first crop is a result of my trying to use rule of thirds and moving her image to the right. Diane

The point is that 'mug shots' do not need nor should follow the RoThirds and unless Tuggie was looking off to one side you should ignore that rule and in the case of the person/animal/subject looking to the side you basically are providing logical room for them to move into it which is not the case here.

A subject may be stationary as a letter box a few days ago but it was facing right of screen so following a crop to remove a power pole it was left undalanced so needed more space to 'look into'