I got a new lens (Sony E 50mm 1.8) so I decided to try it by taking a portrait of my cat. Framing a restless cat turned out to be a challenge, but in the end I think I did get a pretty good picture (in my opinion, critique is very welcomed). But then I wondered what options do I have to post process it?
This is my attempt (little sharpening, a bit of local contrast and a slight white balance to get some warmer shade):
Wow, great shot. I would keep it mostly as it is, there is just a bit of chromatic aberration in the fur and I would denoise it a bit more.
Maybe you can find a place with more light to photograph the cat so you can go down to ISO 100
I love cats, my grandpa called me upstairs to show me your image and we both just started working on it. This picture was taken very well, I really liked how the background sorta faded so the cat was the main focus of the image. Thanks for posting this image! Working on it was a great deal of fun!
The cat’s name is Nika :-).
My sony as the eye-AF but it doesn’t recognize the cat’s face or eyes. I moved the focus point to where i wanted to get the eye and chased the cat a bit around the house until I framed it as I wanted, having the eye in the right place.
It’s a great opportunity for me to learn to better use Darktable. I tried to used it before switching to Rawtherapee, after i didn’t get pleasing enough results. But I really like renditions made here with Darktable, so i’m going to give it another try.
Edit: BTW, @guyru thank you very much for an opportunity to connect with my granddaughter. She’s an artistic sort, and I think this opportunity gave her pause to consider adding photography to her repertoire.
Hi @guyru. Very nice picture. Since you also asked for opinions, here is what I feel. I understand that one is excited to use the shallowest of DOF but I think that the photo would have been better if both eyes and the ears of the cat were in sharp focus. This photo is somewhat disconcerting (to me) because I feel that the cat is materializing out of thin air and the eye that is in focus does not look friendly (to me)!!
Here is RawTherapee version. LAB and Wavelet tabs with a little bit of Haze Removal. DSC02876.jpg.out.pp3 (12.0 KB)
(Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-Alike).
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