Photoshop Is Not A Dirty Word

My vibrant edit of two pugs on the beach at sunset for the Hair of the Dog Academy Edit-Palooza Summit.

There are times —like in journalism— when it’s important to maintain the integrity of an unaltered image. Pet photography is not that time.

Using Photoshop allows me to safely photograph pets on leash, and remove that leash later to deliver a flawless portrait to the client. Photoshop allows me to create an image of multiple pets together, even when they don’t get along. It allows me to remove lumps, bumps, incisions, and scars. Most of all, photoshop allows me to make a scene look MORE like it did in real life, overcoming the limitations of the camera, which simply cannot record the full range of light and colour that our eyes can see.

I like to think of my work as reality…only better. Your pets how you WANT to remember them, not as the Tasmanian devils on crack that they may actually be 🤣

An epic portrait of 9 English Bulldogs posing around a reflecting pond, that I made for Spruce Hollow Bullies in Moncton.

Recently, I was asked to submit a video showing my photo editing process to the Hair of the Dog Academy Edit-Palooza Summit. It was a huge honour to be included alongside 40+ of the biggest names in pet photography, worldwide!

You can watch me edit this photo of Kelley and Declan from Snugapug in Edit-Palooza!

If you are seeing this post in October of 2024, it’s not too late to register for this amazing summit to see how I, and over 40 other top pet photographers, edit our photos! I will walk you through the steps I took to edit this portrait of 2 pugs on the beach at sunset, including removing leashes, brightening the black pug, bringing in a bit more of the sunset sky from another image from the same shoot, using some beauty retouching tools to give the fawn pug a bit of an attitude adjustment, and much more!

I’m pretty excited to see some of the other photographers’ edits included in the summit, myself!

If you register for the summit using this link, I will receive a small affiliate commission that will just be the cherry on top for me! https://tmpetphoto--hairofthedogacademy.thrivecart.com/editing-summit/