critique my edit, did I salvage it?

I really want to make this picture right. This was from an event and all my small dog pics came out awesome. This lab was rather hyper and submissive. He never perked his ears and his whole face looks flat personality wise in all the pics. He didnt really wnat to look at the camera, and I have a few where he did but either both ears were slicked back or his mouth was funny. I chose this pose. I made a composite and fixed the ear, and I did my best to fix the background after cloning, etc. What do you think? Is it ok?
I really want it to be nice when it prints.

Comments and suggestions welcome but for the record this was a pet event and not a pre planned personal session. The backdrop was constant and prob wouldnt have been my choice for a pre planned session for this dog, but I did my best to make it work. Thank you in advance.

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I would like to see the background without the BLUR applied over it. May look better with more information in the wood slats.....

What do you mean by information in the wood slats?

after bad cloning job. I applied this texture and coloring to the background b/c I didnt like the tones. I felt it was ugly and I didnt feel my cloning was salvageable without serious help due to the fine texture of the "wood"

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background is too bright for my taste. Also face seems rather soft and too much 'fuzzyness' where you took the arm out. I like the later version you posted above better. If you know there was an arm there you can somewhat tell, but nobody would know or notice if they don't see the original. The ear looks much better the way you did it IMO. I'd be happy with the one above my reply.

Yeah just the texture of the wood. I might suggest copying parts of the wood and overlaying them on the arm instead of clone stamping. Then mask them and use a brush with no hardness to smooth them on the background maybe.....

Tough call on the background, but I'd eliminate the vertical lines altogether.

Thank you everyone for hte suggestions. I did actually try eliminating the lines all together but it didnt suit me. It looked like some kinda retro background and I just didnt like it.

I took the suggestions about darkening it, or keeping it dark rather. This time I just did a color correction filter and a slight "glow" filter for the fur. I put a very faint rust texture on top of the wood background just for some added texture to overlay the cloning and I touched that up as best I could.

I think this might be as good as it gets and I hoep it's good enough. Not my favorite pet portrait I've done, but It is growing on me.

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Nice results in this last version!

The successive versions get better and better. Just one suggestion for the last one: I think the background gets too bright and pink toward the right. The color of its right half makes it more prominent than anything on the dog except the tongue. If you dull the color on that part of the BG, the dog will get the viewer's attention first.

I would B&W the background...
The ear seemed odd to me as well..but not sure if I made it look more odd...heh

here I would try this though....

I would also add a touch of clarify as well..helps to add some depth. I didn't do that on the above image..it was an afterthought.

Thanks, I will try to drop the background. The ear is a composite but IMO that's not why it looks weird: the odd orange color on his head, well that's really there in all the pics and it makes all the ears look wierd to me. IMO the coloring is out of place yet all I can figure is it's dirt?

abbypanda wrote in post #16221746
Thanks, I will try to drop the background. The ear is a composite but IMO that's not why it looks weird: the odd orange color on his head, well that's really there in all the pics and it makes all the ears look wierd to me. IMO the coloring is out of place yet all I can figure is it's dirt?

The orange/brown color of the dog?

Some black labs have a brown hint to them...I think it's just his color?