Oh wow!!! That makes me want to get a green screen now! I have not been sold on digital backdrops, but, wow!

Your boy is just beautiful. Wishing you great luck on the campaign trail.

Peggy Sue,
Sonny is owned by Dr. Diane Voss. We own his son, Sundance, and were the first to breed to him a little over a year ago. We do his advertising.

He and Jeff Brucker got together in April of this year and he finished up 2007 ranked #6 in both Breed and All-Breed points. He has an excellent chance to move up in 2008. Of course, he has some pretty decent genes -- his dad, Ch Acosta's Adventures of Ivan, was the BOB winner at Westminster in 2002.

He's pretty and sweet -- which is a very nice combination in a Rottie. Sundance both looks like his dad and has a similar temperament. But, because he also has Rowdy as a grandpa, he's just a bit more social. Whether or not he turns out to be a show dog is still debatable. But we'll get him TDI-certified for Therapy Work regardless because in the long run, that's more important to the future of this breed.

More photos as we get additional results from the green screen. I have some baby portraits scheduled for next weekend and it'll be fun to see what we can do with those.

Jim

Both my girls are TDI dogs and I believe that too is important with our breed. A short time ago our two breeds were on a list of this state among eight others that had to be muzzled off the owners property, all were to be neutered or spayed, extra homeowners insurance and more. Needless to say we were ready to move but thankfully it did not pass. Only through good ownership can we change the stigma on some perceptions.

Hey Jim,

Thanks for sharing this. Would you be willing to post a couple of screen shots showing how you do this? I am very visually oriented, and sometimes it just helps seeing how you handle the process visually. I would also be excited to see some comparison crops as well with the competition. I am itching to purchase a green screen myself.

Silly question, do you think it would work equally well on any flat colored image (i.e. shooting on a white or blue screen, etc.)?

On another note, nice job with the design of the ad. It looks very nicely done.

Thanks again!!

James

PS If that question is indeed stupid, LOL, don't be afraid to tell me loudly. :P

Quote:

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We needed to work on the Sonny portraits to get out an ad for Dog News for tomorrow. So, Linda tried both the new pieces of software and CS3 and the end result was the CS3 version. According to Linda, you just drop the background out by using the "select color" menu and it creates a clean edge with plenty of detail. Here's the ad:



We'll do a little more experimenting with the other masking tools but if it works fine in PhotoShop then we'll continue to use it. Having the solid background color makes selection very simple. Once selected, it's easy to drop it out and make the background transparent.

Jim

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Hopefully you don't mind me answering a question directed to Jim but it seems a long time since anything has been posted in this link. I am posting a shoot from yesterday that I shot on a blue screen rather than green. I have left some of the blue around the cuts so you can see how I start to design the collage before cleaning it up for the finished image.

I must admit this was a tough shoot since I had foot surgery two weeks ago and was afraid of being stepped on by paws. The additional dog wrangler did not show up either! Sometimes extra help is good if they really know what they need to do. I also know this was typical of a bride and groom with a mostly white dog and a very dark dog. (excuses??? maybe)

I will post a final image when I go though ones I like.

James, Peggy Sue,
sorry I didn't respond sooner but I've been busy shooting since the Florida Circuit began last weekend -- 13 shows over 16 days. I've gotten several requests for candids, beauty shots, portraits and action shots so I'm running around quite a bit.

The process works fine with any solid color but the reason that blue and green work best is because those colors don't exist in most subjects -- people or dogs for example -- so you can identify the edges easier and not lose any color that might exist in the dogs' coats.

There are lots of ways to do this -- and it would take a manual to describe it in detail -- but, in a nutshell, we create a new document with a transparent background (File/New/Background Contents = Transparent) and then select all of the image we're working on and copy/paste it as a new layer over the transparent background.

We then Select/Color Range to select the background color and Edit/Clear to erase what we've selected. Now, you have a lot of adjustments you can do within the Select/Color Range menu in terms of getting all the color and doing some Refine Edge to get the results you want. Usually, you have to do some manual work with the eraser tool to get them as clean as you want. But this process gets rid of most of the green/blue background while leaving you your subject(s) against a transparent background that can be replaced with anything you choose.

As I see it, the chroma backgrounds (blue or green) make color selection really easy and, since they don't exist in the real world, they won't be cleared from your subject when you select those colors. White, black, etc. might exist to some extent in coat colors.

Anyway, that's how we do it. I'm sure there are better/more efficient ways of getting the same result but this seems to work for us.

Good luck!

Jim