Sam the Ham

[Nat]

This is Sam. He wandered into my yard one day, all 16 pounds if him! He was fat, sassy, already neutered and homeless. I asked all the neighbors, posted at animal control, humane society, the paper and craig's list. Nobody seemed to be missing him. He had a bad tooth, so off to the doc, one tooth pulled, updated on all shots. Now he lives with me. But.....he does not like other cats, and I have 3 others.....so it's kinda isolation for him in my bedroom when I'm not around, and I referee at other times. Cat fights tend to upset my dogs, too, so that's another problem. Sigh. I am trying to get him rehomed thru an organization locally called Cat Connection, but everyone wants kittens. I set him up on my blanket with an umbrella shoot thru on the left and reflector on the right and I kind of made my own relector on my hot shoe flash, and bounced the light off of it and off the ceiling....comments welcome.

Sam

[Geoff F]

Good pose and the lighting is working well.

[Nat]

Thanks, Geoff F. I've had a lot of advice from the nice people here, and trying to follow it.....Here is another pose of Sam. Hmmm now my first image looks a tad dark....

[Rebel]

Great shot Nat, I think the light is much nicer on the first one.

[Kris V]

I definitely prefer the first one. On my monitor (un-calibrated - laptop) the second one shows a reddish cast.
Beautiful cat!

[rpcrowe]

Nat, I like to shoot in RAW and include a WhiBal card in my first shot to achieve color balance. Lacking a WhiBal card, you can do a pretty good job by using the white portion of Sam's coat and the white balance eye dropper in Camera Raw. However, if you have shot the image in JPEG, you can still open it in Adobe Camera RAW (given that you are using Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for PP). On my monitor, Image-2 looks a tad better when the red is reduced just a bit. Perhaps reducing the brightness a little might also help.

On the plus side, you are shooting from Sam's level and he looks very relaxed around you and the camera which is a big plus. IMO, an annoyed cat makes a lousy subject.

[IzzieK]

I am with Kris...so +1 to her observation and comments too...I am on my uncalibrated laptoo too and I am seeing the same as her.

[Nat]

Thank you Matt, Kris and Richard. I think I overdid the processing of #2....I took it too far....I can see it now. I do shoot in Raw...and I will have to go back and try the eye dropper.....thanks for the suggestions.. Sam is funny, he acts like he can't hear (unless he wants to) and he does not play with toys, like feathers on a stick....it was very hard to get him to look at the camera, as he was content to just close his eyes and sleep. He sleeps during the day, then keep me up at night....wonder if you can change the time clock of a cat like you can a person? Here is a remake. I like to put a remake in another reply, rather than replace the first one, because when someone replaces it, another person cannot see the difference in the two, only the remake. Frustrating..

[rpcrowe]

IMO, the remake is beautiful! What a handsome cat! I love his eyes!

[Kris V]

IMO, the remake is beautiful! What a handsome cat! I love his eyes!

+1

[bnnrcn]

I can't see the remake on my computer, I don't know why but I can say that your cat is beautiful

[Nat]

Thank you, Richard and Kris. Binnur, can you see it now? I'm not sure what happened.

[bugster0121]

We11 done. Beautiful cat. Sounds like he adopted the right human.

Thanks for sharing.

[IzzieK]

I have to use my D90 more, Nat...the second shot is really good with the pp.

[Nat]

Thank you, Izzie and Tim....