So I think there is a common misconception that when it comes to photography, that photos look awesome out of camera. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Well, that’s not true–sometimes they do look awesome, especially if you have the luxury of time to perfectly compose the shot. :p Most of the time though, most photographers spend a significant amount of time post-processing their work, as I do–which is sometimes why it takes a little bit longer for people to see their images from their session! I want them to look perfect! :)

When it comes to pet photography and working with pets, I often have to move fast–working with a quick shutter speed and taking multiple frames just to capture the right expression. Sometimes I’ll get the right expression in one image but the composition might be a little off, or the composition might be just right, but the expression is a little off. When this happens, I work my Photoshop magic to create the final image.

Here’s one setup that I really loved, but the images that came out, I wasn’t the greatest fan of. The first image here of Scrappy–his expression is not the greatest.

Then the second image, while I love his happy face, I cropped him a bit too closely in camera. So what to do?

By using my experience and skills, I overlaid the two and did some re-positioning to create the best of both images. There’s some subtle differences in the before and after images, but if you don’t know what to look for, I don’t think it’s too noticeable, right? :)