By Charlotte Reeves

Speed edits are just so much fun, right? 😁

I photographed Tess the White Swiss Shepherd last year as part of my Action Superstars series.

When I organised this shoot, I had a really clear picture in my head of exactly what I wanted to capture. I wanted a white dog, captured perfectly sharply, full of energy and expression, launching straight towards the camera out of the water, with a beautiful backlit forest full of bokeh in the background.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up with that one perfect shot I had in my head, where the framing, action, expression and focus was exactly how I wanted, so I decided to challenge myself and attempt to create that one perfect shot, using multiple images.

My hard work paid off when the image was awarded a Silver in the AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards in 2019. Here’s the full process from start to finish, sped up times 7.

I hope you enjoy watching it!

Timecodes

0:00  Intro

1:49  Image selection and export

1:56  Eye replacement

2:40  New background selection and edit

2:51 Background replacement

3:28 Ear edge fix

4:14 Ear edge fix using donor image

5:34 Adding extra splashes from donor image

6:18 Mouth replacement

7:30 Nose replacement

7:46 Brightening white fur

8:27 Cleaning up face

8:48 Revisiting ear edge

9:10 Tidying up water areas

9:58 Lightening dog and water

10:13 Saving layered PSD

10:18 Tidying and warming flattened image

10:29 Cropping and extending background up

10:50 General tidying

10:59  Sharpening and enhancing eyes

11:21 Darkening nose

11:29 Further straightening

11:34 Fixing clipped bokeh

11:48 More tidying

12:10  Saving flattened version

12:12 Even more tidying

12:18 Darkening bottom

12:21 Running final "Polish Up" Action

12:25 Sharpening dog and water

12:34 Final eye enhancement

12:46 Donor Images & Final Image