First pic with new Nikon D40x (CC please)

[rskirby]

This is Sugar, my yorkie. She hates it when I take pictures of her, lol I can just see it in her face, she's like "Mom! Would you stop that crap!!" But she did participate pretty well yesterday.

Anybody got any ideas on what I can do with her eyes? I don't have much by way of a lighting set up yet, that's my next goal, and I tried PS Elements, wasn't satisfied with the results so I just left it and figured I'd ask the pros here.

[Lee4145]

Cute picture. I just got a yorkie pup for my daughter. I don't know much about Elements but you should be able to just select the color you want to change and then paint it black with an opacity that looks natural. Does it not have a red eye tool?

[PrestonSmith]

Shoot in natural light, or bounce the flash, or get a couple of cheap 'worklights' at the hardware store and set them up 45 degrees on either side of your camera. This is hard to fix in post processing and be convincing. You need to get enough light in the eyes to show the color, but not directly on the lens axis where the light goes directly into the pupils and gives the green eye effect.

[rskirby]

Ahhhh, thanks Preston. I do have one cheap work light but had it positioned wrong. Your advise helps alot. I'll con my little one again soon and see how that works. I have to lure her with her favorite toy. Thanks to you too lee.

[Paht6]

Welcome to Photo Kamel, great photo learning site. BTW cute dog.

[Goofup]

First welcome to the Camel.

Preston and Lee gave you some great advice. It's that direct flash into their eyes that gives you that "animal eye" look. Turn off your camera's on-board flash and use direct or natural light OR use bounce flash.

Unfortunately, PE can easily fix red-eye, but not animal-eye. All is not lost. A quick fix is to just paint the eye's with either a solid color or with the color of their eye at a slightly reduced opacity. Looks spooky unless you add catchlights. Use a white brush, 2-3 pixels in size, and add the catchlights. I have no idea what the real color of your dog's eyes are so I just used black. Hope you don't mind:

[rskirby]

Wow! Thanks goofup. That looks much better and I agree about the animal eye, it's not as easy to fix in PS. Thanks to everybody for all your help.