Seriously, little kitty was crazy tonight. Blood was shed. This picture depicts how I feel sometimes when she in one of her moods.
BEGIN RAMBLING.
I've had this idea on the back burner for a while, and finally decided to give it a shot today. Can't say I'm 100% satisfied with the result, but it was fun and, as always, a learning experience.
I hate to point out all of the things that I dislike about it, but I might as well, because if anyone has some advice or feedback on any of the points below, I would looove to hear it! I mean, how else will I ever improve?
Please, be ruthless.
Matching angles and lighting is hard, but I think of all the things I dislike, this is the thing that I dislike the least. If I matched the light well, then the other issues made it not as satisfying.
Creating shadows is hard. I'm at a total loss here. Someone, anyone?
Matching textures is also hard, and this is exacerbated by differing image quality when shots are taken at two different distances, mainly out of necessity. The shot of me was taken about 12 feet away and was surprisingly sharp. The shot of Socks was about 6 feet, and blurry, and a bit raunchy.
However, I was having trouble catching her in focus, which only added to the problem. I had to compensate for all of the grain that was introduced by sharpening her. In the end, I had introduce more grain into the rest of the shot to even it out, and even toss in some other textures to coverup these boo boos. Le sigh.
When it comes to distance, I guess I need to consider different types of monocular depth cues (yes, this is real talk now, kiddies), but I guess Im still trying to figure out how best to capture the initial image with such cues already in place, or how to best capture the image to allow me to introduce them later.
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure which approach would render better results. Also, I'm kind of wondering, even if I exectuted perfectly, how believable would it be that an overgrown kitty cat is chasing a human?
I'm not sure the best way to correct your problems but I wanted to put my husbands repsonse when he saw your photo.
"That is a HUGE cat.... He should have put a t-rex there instead of a man"
I think that may just be adding to your problems though, how are you going to get a photo of a t-rex?!
LOL, love it. Gave me a good chuckle. It amazes me what you can do with a picture. I have no advice since I'm such an amatuer. I admire your skill. I think it's a great shot.
The only thing I can see is that your shadow is forward whereas Socks' shadow is to the side. If you were a little left and forward of your current position, you could put the shadow more to the side and not have it lost in the grass...the shadow on your shirt seems darker than it should be in relation to Socks face.
HOWEVER, I wouldn't have caught it if you hadn't told us to look for it. Great job!
When I recreate shadows, I make a selection of the thing I want to have a shadow and feather the shit out of it, and then I transform the selection to get it in the right direction, and fill it in with a black to transparent gradient.
@gypsylady That's what I originally tried and then, meh, screw it, I went click crazy with the burn tool until the whole friggin' field was on fiiii-uh! Thanks for the suggestion, though. I'll give it a better shot next time (tomorrow).
you're way too hard on yourself
I'm sitting at work and I checked my "socks" bookmark and spit my coffee all over my desk
this picture is amazing
i love it
I'm laughing my ass off over here
Ok, I love so many things about this, but you asked for criticism, so here goes...at first I thought that YOU were chasing the cat, not the other way around. I think that you need to be closer to the front for it to look like the cat is chasing you. Also the cat is not looking at you. Though looking at it big, it kind of looks like you guys are running parallel to each other. Yep, looked again (had to scroll up) I would put kitty more towards the back. I have to work with this kind of thing all of the time at work, trying to take 2 different products photographed on different days by different people with different lighting and etc, and it is VERY challenging to try to match up the orientaion and lighting. Those drop shadows can be difficult too, and can take a lot of tickering to get right. Sometimes it's a matter of the distance between, sometimes you have to make the edges more or less sharp. I really love this idea....fun shot. :-)
With my definitely amateur eyes, the only thing I noticed is that Socks' colour was a bit flat, you don't see much of her orange shade, other than that it looks great
Lol, brilliant idea! Since I can just about master the basics in PS, I can't really offer any insights. I love the grainyness (is that even a word??) actually. Getting Socks to directly look at you would just top it off, but this is brill nontheless :-)
@gurry I'm a Graphic Designer/Web Dev for a technical company that makes nanopositioning products. I do the web sites, and create print ads and track them. Mostly it's fun.
This is hilarious :). The editing is not perfect but still much more perfect than anything I've done but as you asked for it: Socks seems a bit too light in contrast to the darker surroundings and the axis between you and here doesn't seem to run straight. Also, she doesn't seem to be in motion that much, even though her pose suggests it. But still, it looks really, really cool!
@gavincci @arielmagyawejr
"That is a HUGE cat.... He should have put a t-rex there instead of a man"
I think that may just be adding to your problems though, how are you going to get a photo of a t-rex?!
HOWEVER, I wouldn't have caught it if you hadn't told us to look for it. Great job!
I'm sitting at work and I checked my "socks" bookmark and spit my coffee all over my desk
this picture is amazing
i love it
I'm laughing my ass off over here
man you outdo yourself everytime
can't comment on your rant - I don't even know how to use photoshop
Stunning idea and very cool! - fav
lol... made my day , you are in big trouble >.<
Question: What do you do for work? Sounds funnn! :D
I really really love your work with Socks.