Otis--First Attempts with PE

[Mike330R]

Trying to adjust these pic's. The originals have heavy shadows around the eyes. I adjusted things a bit but now the white on his head it to bright.

What do I need to do?

These are my adjustments. Links to the original TIFF (18Megs) are below.
Pic 1:
http://www.sandbros.net/adjust/otis_all.jpg

Pic 2:
http://www.sandbros.net/adjust/otis_face.jpg

Original 1:
http://www.sandbros.net/adjust/otis_all_orig.TIF

Original 2:
http://www.sandbros.net/adjust/otis_face.TIF

Thanks for any tips!!

[ssim]

Cute dog.

The highlights are totally blown. I downloaded the tiff for the first file and I certainly couldn't get anything back into the highlights at the top of his head. There is such a difference in range between the left and right sides of the dogs face I think it would be difficult to restore detail to it.

I couldn't get the link on the second image to work.

I'd keep trying and maybe see if you could move him into light that isn't so harsh.

I struggled alot when I first started with this so don't lose heart.

[RichardtheSane]

Nice dog :)

As Sheldon said, the highlights are blown out and unfortunatly there is no recovering them either.

Jusging by the shadows on the top one it looks like the sunlight was from your right, so the white had the harshest light on it. What I would recommend is shooting witht he light behind you to try and avoid and shadows across the face.

You dog would look really nice if you used the late afternoon/evening sunlight as the light. About 1-2 hours befire dusk would be good. The warm light would really bring out the colour in his/her eyes.