Last night after the Teddy Test I moved to a live kitty. I think the reason I needed to do this is because of my lack of knowledge/experience. What I mean by this is that when doing the ?TT? and moving the lights I noticed the final outcome was different each time, but couldn?t really see the specifics until Preston broke it down for me with crops, pictures and explanations. Because of the experience you all have you know what to look for and see the obvious.

I have taken so many kitty pictures that I thought it might be easier for me.

In this first photo it was better than a lot of what I had been getting previously, but still not right (and I am not sure why). Unless now the answer might just be that I need a better camera?



Then I used ACDSee photo editing software and did an auto color change



Then an auto contrast change



and finally and auto color, contrast, brightness change



Do any of these look right (for lack of a better word) to you?

Thanks,
Barbra

To my eyes, the last two look best.

The original is slightly over exposed.

On camera choices, are you set on Canon?

The first one looks best to me. Look at the color of the fur between the eyes, isn't that the 'real' color of the cat? Compare that to the same spot on the others. Auto color seldom works well with cats. However, on this particular cat you could try setting a white point left front paw (that is pure white, right?).

Also look at what your corrections did to the shadow on camera left.

I see two catchlights in the right eye but you must have had the light on camera left much further away to be casting the shadow like that?

Hi Jim,

With the original what should I have done differently with the lights to produce a better end result?

I am not set on anything at this point. The two cameras I listed were both recommended and they just happen to be Canons. Additionally, I do know someone that works for Canon, so she might be able to help.

Barbra

I fear we're getting into a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation here with all of us trying to help and probably confusing things even more :O

I must confess to not knowing what the "true" colors of the cat in the photo are, but I like the last two. That said, they could be completely "wrong" compared to reality.

I'm going to sit back and let the others do the advising.

That said, the first one looks over exposed by just a bit, so I measured it and there are some areas that are really close to being totally blown out. I got a lot of 253-254 readings.

The second looks like there is a bit of a color cast introduced by the auto correction.

I prefer the darker face in the last two, but again I don't know how dark that is in reality. Not to confuse things too much more, but we don't even really know what you are seeing on your monitor, which I'm assuming isn't calibrated, so it could conceivably look purple to you and we would never know.

What you could do with the lights is really a catch 22. You could back them up a bit, but then your shadow is going to get even worse because the relative size of the light compared to your subject would be smaller.

You could hang a piece of thin white fabric (far far away from any hot bulbs) between the light and the subject to soften things a bit.

That's another reason I prefer the CFL bulbs. I don't have to worry so much about starting a fire.

Jim you are right. It could be purple. On my monitor the first one is a blue point, the second one is mink. Given what I saw of the cat the blue seemed more likely to be correct. Sorry to jump on your reply, we were answering at the same time.

No worries at all. I noticed that we must have been typing at the same time.