Welcome to the first video in my new Edit My Photo series!

In my Learn Pet Photography Facebook group, we run monthly editing challenges. How it works is:

• I provide one of my RAW images for group members to download and edit
• They post their final edits of my photo
• From all the submissions, I choose a “winner”
• The winner then submits one of their images for me to edit!

I love these challenges (and so do my students!) because it’s so interesting to see how different people’s individual styles and editing techniques can completely transform an image in so many different ways.

For me - editing the winner’s image gives me the opportunity to demonstrate new pet photography editing techniques!

If you’d like to join us in the private Facebook group for Learn Pet Photography so you can participate in these challenges, you just need to be a member of the Learn Pet Photography website by purchasing a course, or enrolling in some free training.

Cassie was a recent winner and when she submitted her image, I loved how my edit turned out and thought it would be a good opportunity to create an in-depth tutorial to share. In this video, I demonstrate a technique I use to edit different parts of the image in different ways, but still fully utilising all the detail and colour from the RAW file in Lightroom. Using this technique, I created different edits for the background, the dog and the grass, then seamlessly combined them to end up with a colourful, vibrant and fun finished image.

Join me in the tutorial and learn some new pet photography editing techniques for yourself!

Chapters:
0:00 - Realshoots Community Edit My Photo Challenge overview
0:57 - Editing Challenge winner
1:28 - Winner's Image to edit
2:43 - Lightroom edit for the dog
3:12 - Histogram analysis
3:30 - Increasing the contrast and adding colour/definition
5:29 - Dealing with blue colour casts on fur
6:23 - Creating a virtual copy for the background edit
6:51 - Enhancing the colours in the background
8:38 - Comparing the two edits
9:17 - Exporting to Photoshop
9:58 - Combine and align the two images
10:30 - Masking out the top layer
13:12 - Leash removal
14:22 - Removal of other distractions
15:25 - Straighten and crop
16:01 - Further enhancing background colours
19:25 - Darkening hotspots
20:05 - Fixing up the grass colours
22:37 - Another method to turn brown grass to green
24:10 - Editing progress - before and after
24:47 - Polish up action
26:25 - Fixing fur staining around mouth
28:00 - Back in Lightroom to check Histogram and colour
30:26 - Eye and brain reset 👀 🧠
31:32 - Raw photo vs edited image
32:08 - Adding a vignette
32:27 - Comparing Photoshop Edit with Lightroom tweaks
32:53 - Outro
33:22 - Before and afters