Need Feedback, Please

[Jay, Lola and Colonel Esau]

Hey everyone.  As you know I am new to digital photograph and editing, and I was hoping you could give me your thoughts on the editing of this photo.  Here is the before and after:

Specifically, what do you think about:

Cropping.  Is Lola too high in the frame?

Grass.  Too green?

Exposure.  Still too many shadows on Lola - especially her chest?  Or does that keep in from looking overly photoshopped?

Thanks in advance.  Please don't hold back.  Again I'm new to this and I appreciate your criticism.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Okay, you did ask. This is not a great quality photo when I zoom on it. Lola is too far away so when zoomed she gets fuzzy. Are you settings for the most maximized photos, fine or whatever your camera calls it? If you have enough pixels cropping is fine. Lola's face is not visible. Yes, Lola is too high in the frame. If it were good editing more foreground grass would be better, and of course removing the lines. The first thing in editing is to start with a great photo. I know all the editing in the world does not make a not so good photo great because I have tried. Now I don't even bother : )

[F, Calla & Luca]

Sorry, I meant less foreground grass.

[Anita - Thunder, Noodle, Sparky]

So pretty! Dark dogs are so hard for me to adjust lighting. I drop the shadow to have my dogs features stand out. I'm on my phone so I cannot tell to much on Lola's color. The green is good. For cropping, I would drop her down and cut more grass off on the bottom. I would also move her a bit to the right in the frame. The 1/3 rule is great to remember when cropping. Visually divide your picture in thirds, vertically or horizontally. Place your subject in one of those 1/3 sections. For action, I move the subject to the side, with the open area of the frame being the direction the subject is headed towards to give the illusion of the subject coming towards you.

[Anita - Thunder, Noodle, Sparky]

*too much**

[Richard Crowe]

I think this is a very nice shot.  It may be a bit high in the frame but, I could certainly live with that composition.  Looking at the original, I can see why it was cropped this way (to remove the distracting background near the top of the frame).

The grass does not seem too bright a green, at least it doesn't on my monitor.  However,even with calibration, there are differences in the way monitors display images.

Sure there are shadows on Lola's chest. But, even though the lighting seems diffused, I can see that Lola is a bit back lit.  Unless you pump in some fill flash, you are going to get shadows on a back-lit dog, especially a dark coated dog like Lola. I really think trying to lighten those shadows in editing might cause more problems than it solves. 

One thing that absolutely drives me crazy when I am shooting my Holly is that the hair around her eyes and her enormously long eyelashes often obscure her eyes from the camera.  I love to see a dog's eyes but, it is difficult to accomplish regularly when shooting Holly and most other doodles I have photographed. Holly sometimes looks like she has black pits where her eyes should be.  A lot depends on how long it has been since Holly has visited the beauty parlor. Using a flash helps a bit but, sometimes I just lose her eyes.  And... Holly is a light colored dog!

One thing that sort of distracts me is the garden hose in the frame.  I played with this image a bit by removing some of the foreground (which makes the top seem less constricted).  I also lightened up Lola's chest just a tad.  Finally, I used the spot healing brush tool to remove the lower hose and used the clone stamp tool to remove the top section of garden hose. I didn't do a great job (especially where the hose meets Lola) but, after cropping the image that I had copied was a bit small to work with. I think that the clone stamp method looks best.  But,  perhaps this gives you an idea of what I mean...

[Jay, Lola and Colonel Esau]

Good point about the hose - thanks.

[Jay, Lola and Colonel Esau]

PS - I guess you are right, she is a bit backlit here.  Basically it was a day where it kept changing from slightly overcast to partly cloudy.

[Camilla and Darwin]

Great idea about taking out the hose

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

The other thing I would do is remove the "hose?" on the grass, editting this out is quick and easy!

[Jay, Lola and Colonel Esau]

Thanks - didn't even occur to me you could do that.  Amazing, this software.

[Jay, Lola and Colonel Esau]

Thanks everyone.

F., to answer your question I think the lack of clarity is due to the extremely high ISO.  In general I'm finding this camera is not really up to the task for action shots.  There was plenty of nice, cloudy light and it shouldn't be a problem to have a decent shutter speed and faster ISO.  My understanding is the reason this is a problem with these bridge cameras is that that the sensor is very small, in order to permit extraordinary zooming with a single lens that isn't very long.  It works great if she is sitting still, but for action or distance it becomes hard.  But that's a different issue.

The more vexing problem I'm having is the right exposure - whether she's moving, sitting still or otherwise.  It's very difficult to get it so that you can see all the detail on Lola and not have the rest of the picture blown out.  So I'm trying to determine the extent to which I can fix this after the fact with good photo editing software and a brush that lets you apply the fixes to just a specific part of the photo. 

[F, Calla & Luca]

I hear you. A dSLR would be better for action and similar things. I am not an editing maven but I do think taking a good picture is much easier, as hard as it can be, than getting involved in major editing, unless of course you love it, which I don't . You'll get a lot of noise on all but the best, newest fabulous cameras if you have a high ISO. Cropping only exaggerates flaws so a good photo, with maximal pixels is essential. The calendar, for instance, has limitations on how few pixels are acceptable. Some things, like removing small objects are a cinch now with Photoshop though. The full frame cameras are no doubt the best but the camera and lenses are very expensive and very heavy. People get wonderful images with the regular dSLRs and for all of us, who are not pros, they are more than adequate. A cloudy day with good light can be the best but Lola should be running into the sun.
Some people, like Laurie, Fudge and Vern, have been using a secondary flash for action shots of darker dogs or even dogs with dark eyes. I don't opt for all the equipment and the bother. So I delete many, many photos : )