A Swish of The Tail

[Gabriela Plesea]

I thought of posting this image I processed over a year ago, I do not remember what effects I used because I was going through this "experimental" stage and tried just about everything I could in Photoshop...I also used to flatten all the layers at the time...Shall I keep it or dump it?

Wishing you all a fabulous week-end,

[Nancy Bell]

Beautiful cheetah and colorful eyes. To me it is a reverse of what one expects with a cheetah...here the animal is standing still and the bkgd looks like it is moving! I like that. There is something about the bright, bright tail tip and the light around it that is confusing to my eyes. I think there could be a nice diagonal line from the eyes back to the tail tip and then have a bit more soft light beyond to continue the diagonal. I think the cheetah should have helped you here with raising the tail just enough to separate it from the body .

[Kerry Perkins]

I like this a lot, please don't send it to the bit bucket! I love seeing the big, wild cats doing things that my house cats do - in this case the stretching of the back with the feet all gathered together. So cool! My only suggestion for processing this image would be to smooth out the transition of the vignette a bit, so the change from light to dark is not quite so abrupt. But, as Mark Fuge says "your image, your vision".

A neat trick that I learned when working in Photoshop is to not flatten the image, but instead use "stamp visible". This is a somewhat hidden feature, in that there is no direct menu selection for it. The magic key combo is Shift+Ctrl+Alt+E (Windows) or Shift+Command+Option+E (Mac OS). Be sure that you have all layers that you want to include visible, and that you have the top layer selected. What this command does is merges all the visible layers into a new layer but doesn't flatten the image, so you will still have all those layers you worked so hard to create plus a new layer that you can continue to work on. If you decide to change anything "down in the stack", you just hide that new layer, make the changes, and do the command again. I do this routinely now, as the saved TIFF or PSD file will have all those original layers, which you can edit later if you want to.

[Diane Miller]

I've been too busy to comment here lately, but had to respond to this one -- KEEP IT!! I LOVE IT! The tail is a little strange, but for an artistic image, you don't need accurate description. It makes him (her?) look contemplative.

I wish the darks in the top half weren't so dark, or with such an abrupt transition, but I love the light on the animal!

[Paul Lagasi]

I agree with above comments Keep It!...I might spend a bit of time working on the top right corner above the tail and that one shiny spot on the tail.....TFS

[Cheryl Slechta]

Gabriela, I'd definitely keep it - I love the light and the dark background. The only issue I have is that the leopard seems to be floating in air - I'd like to see a tiny hint of terra firma to ground her. And maybe a little more room at the bottom. But it's your vision and a lovely image

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you all so much for your comments and suggestions, I must have broken every rule in the book here but you are all so forgiving and encouraging I will be back with more

Kerry, thank you for the "trick", this is new to me - I will certainly try it out!

Warmest regards,

[Jackie Schuknecht]

The cheetah is beautiful, but I might reduce the blacks and include more of the feet. Was the BG really busy, if not maybe more of a subtle vignette. As noted the rim lighting is terrific.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you Jackie, I will go back to this image and see if I can incorporate some of the suggestions received. At the time I processed this I did not have CS6 yet, and it was just me playing and experimenting. I am a lot more careful these days, since I have learnt a lot form the BPN moderators over the past few months. But I am really glad I managed to grab your attention here, even for a fleeting second I promise to pop in to OOTB more often, I love it here!

Kind regards,

[Mitch Carucci]

Love the light. You wouldn't really be thinking of dumping it???

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you Mitch, and sorry for replying so late. I did consider deleting this, but now I feel it deserves a rework. Really appreciate your kind words

Kind regards,