Welcome to Episode 5 of the Edit My Photo Challenge 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.

Edina was the winner of this month’s challenge with her perfectly toned edit of my photo of Faith, Blue and Yoshi the Border Collies. As the winner of the challenge, Edina submitted an image of her little dog Fluffy taken in her backyard during lockdown. The grass wasn’t in the best shape, but I love Fluffy’s expression and pose.

During the edit, I turned the dead patches of grass to lush green, removed distractions, applied a little extra blurring of the background and also selectively lightened and darkened the image to help guide the viewers attention to the focal point of the photo - Fluffy’s cute little furry face and chocolate drop sparkly eyes!

I also discretely dealt with the, ahhh, elephant in the room. 🐘

Watch the edit from start to finish, or fast-track using the time codes below.

0:00 - Intro
1:11 - Editing challenge winner
1:33 - Winner's image to edit
2:46 - Basic adjustments in Lightroom
3:55 - Raw Image vs With Lightroom Adjustments
4:19 - Removing distractions in Photoshop
4:56 - Dealing with the elephant in the room 🐘
6:59 - Dealing with the dead grass
9:18 - Improving the composition and flow of the image
12:26 - Covering up the remaining dead grass
16:23 - Dealing with the problem area
17:36 - Removing duplicates and tidying up the background
20:39 - Making the dog stand out even more
26:35 - Improving the look of the dog's eyes
27:35 - Running the Polish-up Action
29:08 - Quick overview - Raw vs the Photoshop edit
29:41 - Cropping in Lightroom
30:51 - Vignetting
32:34 - Raw vs Final Image
33:12 - Outro
33:41 - Before and Afters