The Nature, Wildlife and Pet Photography Forum - Fine Art Landscape Photography

Tear track retouching?

Posted By: Jim Poor

Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 04:35 PM

I did a shoot last night for Andrew from Greatest American Dog along with two other of his doggy siblings.

This is Geoffrey who has a bit of trouble with tear tracks.

So far, the best way I've come up with to deal with something this extensive is to do a B&W conversion and mess with the red sliders for saturation and luminosity.

I could go hair by hair and retouch the whole thing, but I'm wondering if you all have any other ideas that are less labor intensive. I've got nearly 100 images and while I'm sure I won't need to retouch them all, any time-savers would be great.



Posted By: psmith

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 05:46 PM

Does that come out with a good bath? Or is it a permanent stain?

If permanent I wouldn't retouch it, that's the dog. If a bath fixes it don't shoot until you are brought a clean dog.

That said, you could try:

1. Do your technique and then Art History brush back in the color in the eyes and nose.

2. Go into Lab mode and play with the Lightness channel.

3. Try the Image/Adjustment/Replace Color dialog.
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 06:12 PM

Apparently it is permanent or nearly so. There is some sort of doggy make-up that could hide it, but the owner really isn't into all that just for appearances.

I didn't think about LAB, I'll have to give that a shot.

Maybe a combination of desaturation and replace color would work. I'll have to give it a shot after a nap.
Posted By: Jim Garvie

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 06:14 PM

I'm in agreement with #3. You've got drool lines as well which this would help with.

Jim
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 06:24 PM

I guess some Maltese owners teach their dogs to drink from rabbit bottles to combat this.
Posted By: wallyspop

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 09:12 PM

may I play with the image Jim?
Posted By: wallyspop

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 09:47 PM

by the way, bluing is often used. Not sure if good or bad. I would think you would want a professional groomer doing it.
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 10:57 PM

Quote:

may I play with the image Jim?




Sure.
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/11/09 10:58 PM

Yes, (though I didn't know it was called bluing) the owner has some stuff that will hide the stains. Thankfully, she really likes the B&W versions and wants to do another shoot when she has the little guy cleaned up a bit.

Quote:

by the way, bluing is often used. Not sure if good or bad. I would think you would want a professional groomer doing it.


Posted By: glamson

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/12/09 06:11 PM

Quote:

I did a shoot last night for Andrew from Greatest American Dog along with two other of his doggy siblings.

This is Geoffrey who has a bit of trouble with tear tracks.

So far, the best way I've come up with to deal with something this extensive is to do a B&W conversion and mess with the red sliders for saturation and luminosity.

I could go hair by hair and retouch the whole thing, but I'm wondering if you all have any other ideas that are less labor intensive. I've got nearly 100 images and while I'm sure I won't need to retouch them all, any time-savers would be great.






Jim,

Yes tear staining is the bane of white dog owners, especially the little ones like the Maltese. This will happen to dogs of any color that tear or salivate alot which allows red yeast to grow and stain the coat. In a white dog like this maltese it can get pretty bad. I can't imagine the amount of time and money Maltese owners put into trying to get rid of this.

Anyway, it seemed like a good challenge. I can't say that my method was really a time saver, but I thought I'd take a shot with my favorite RAW converter Capture NX2, because it uses color control points that can selectively control colors. Actually I thought the conversion to BW was a good idea except that you lose all the color. For these I used several control points to desaturate specifically the red stain. I left just a little color in the face (otherwise it would just be the same as your BW version) for the first two. For the second one I went a little further and cloned out a couple of the distracting strands. For the third one I desaturated and lightened the red almost to complete BW. The beauty of the control points is it allowed for selective contol without having to mask.

This method works fine for several keepers but would still be cumbersome for doing hundreds.

Geo



Posted By: glamson

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/12/09 06:13 PM

Quote:

I did a shoot last night for Andrew from Greatest American Dog along with two other of his doggy siblings.

This is Geoffrey who has a bit of trouble with tear tracks.

So far, the best way I've come up with to deal with something this extensive is to do a B&W conversion and mess with the red sliders for saturation and luminosity.

I could go hair by hair and retouch the whole thing, but I'm wondering if you all have any other ideas that are less labor intensive. I've got nearly 100 images and while I'm sure I won't need to retouch them all, any time-savers would be great.






Jim,

Yes tear staining is the bane of white dog owners, especially the little ones like the Maltese. This will happen to dogs of any color that tear or salivate alot which allows red yeast to grow and stain the coat. In a white dog like this maltese it can get pretty bad. I can't imagine the amount of time and money Maltese owners put into trying to get rid of this.

Anyway, it seemed like a good challenge. I can't say that my method was really a time saver, but I thought I'd take a shot with my favorite RAW converter Capture NX2, because it uses color control points that can selectively control colors. Actually I thought the conversion to BW was a good idea except that you lose all the color. For these I used several control points to desaturate specifically the red stain. I left just a little color in the face (otherwise it would just be the same as your BW version) for the first two. For the second one I went a little further and cloned out a couple of the distracting strands. For the third one I desaturated and lightened the red almost to complete BW. The beauty of the control points is it allowed for selective contol without having to mask.

This method works fine for several keepers but would still be cumbersome for doing hundreds.

Geo





Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/12/09 06:18 PM

Very cool. I was thinking about trying Viveza with this for the control points. I may give it a shot in LR with the selective adjustment tool.
I think I like the 3rd one best.
Thanks for the tips.
Posted By: glamson

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/12/09 06:32 PM

Quote:

Very cool. I was thinking about trying Viveza with this for the control points. I may give it a shot in LR with the selective adjustment tool.
I think I like the 3rd one best.
Thanks for the tips.




Jim,

Yes Viveza should do the same thing in LR (although I think Nik has it priced a little high). The nice thing about Viveza is it implements the changes as a smart filter that creates a layer so the editing is completely non-destructive. CaptureNX2 is non-destructive for NEF files, but not for jpegs.

Good luck with it.

Geo
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/23/09 04:38 PM

I found that a combination of using one of the Bleach Bypass filter in Nik Color FX, desaturation of the red & yellow in hue and saturation and increasing the luminosity of the same rendered the best results so far.

That said, I won't be processing the rest of these for color, we'll be doing a re-shoot with a cleaned up face.
Posted By: psmith

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/23/09 08:46 PM

Funny how people don't 'see' it every day. It's as though the camera gives them new eyes to see with. I guess it is like looking at yourself in the mirror versus seeing a photo of yourself. Glad they are going to clean that puppy up.
Posted By: FarleyDog

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/24/09 09:51 AM

When I shoot a dog with tear stains I use the powder sold in PETCO to hide it.

Have you tried color replace in Photoshop??
Posted By: Jim Poor

Re: Tear track retouching? - 03/25/09 02:47 AM

Yeah, I tried color replace Didn't care for the results much, but then again, color replace is not something I use very often, so it could just be me.
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