Hi, I’m Kira DeDecker (“key-ra dee-decker”) and I’m a pet photographer serving Arizona’s greater Phoenix Metro area. Welcome to my blog! This is where I share not only my most recent work but also my life with you. Client sneak peeks, Facebook recaps, announcements, updates, awesome new offerings and the occasional (okay, frequent) story about my crazy but amazing life with my three dogs – Sox, Bixby and Waffles.

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editing, Uncategorized

February 5, 2014

A Peek Into the Post Processing Process

I shoot in RAW, the digital equivalent of a film negative. This format requires extra editing because, unlike a JPEG which already processed the image with contrast, brightness, color, noise reduction, and sharpening, a RAW file is pretty much untouched and unprocessed giving you as much detail available (hence the name RAW). Shooting RAW means that I get to control exposure, white balance, contrast and et cetera all after the fact giving me the most flexible and control with my images.

I thought it would be nice to showcase the many things you can do with an image when you start with a RAW file. In most of these cases, I did the bulk of my editing in Lightroom and saved the heavy lifting for Photoshop.

Pet Photography Lightroom B&A
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[/wpw_ba_viewer]Fallon was just a laid back girl for our session so we just put a long lead on her and just let her enjoy the scenes around her. After doing my usual post processing, I removed my husband/assistant in Photoshop.

Pet Photography Lightroom
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[/wpw_ba_viewer]From my most recent session with Charlie & Riley. After doing my usual clean editing in LR, I imported into PS where I took care of the leashes and other distracting items and replaced the sky to add some depth and dimension, I also added some grass and cleaned up the LOVE sculpture.

KitsuneBA

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[/wpw_ba_viewer]My favorite Shiba Inu, Kitsune! Here is an example deliberately underexposing to maintain the sky and not to blow out the white in the fur. I recovered the sky, brightened the over all image and removed the leash all with Lightroom.

WinstonBA
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[/wpw_ba_viewer]Who could ever forgot the cuteness that is Winston? Nobody with a soul that’s who! If you are curious, here is how to Turning Brown and Yellow Grass Green in Photoshop.

BarronBA
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[/wpw_ba_viewer]The incredible lovable Barron! Warmed the image and removed distracting items with Lightroom.

  1. Charlotte Reeves

    February 7th, 2014 at 12:10 am

    Kira I love the slidey before and after thingo, what a great idea! So interesting to see other people's editing results too. 🙂

  2. Holly Montgomery

    February 7th, 2014 at 12:37 am

    HAHA, me too. That's the first thing I thought when I saw it. Rocks socks!

  3. Jackie P

    February 7th, 2014 at 6:49 am

    Thanks for sharing so many before and afters! I like the clever slide too! Beautiful captures and edits!

  4. Tara Lynn

    February 28th, 2014 at 2:51 pm

    For the LOVE photo…did you use a sky from a stock photo or another photo? I’m still pretty brush-illiterate in photoshop, but if you were able to bring back the clouds through editing, can you share some more steps? I have a hard time bringing the sky back in some of my photos without it looking overdone. Thanks for sharing your wisdom!

  5. Kira DeDecker Photography

    March 1st, 2014 at 12:25 pm

    I replaced the sky with a Sky Overlay.

  6. Mary Basnight

    March 14th, 2014 at 1:11 pm

    Great photography and your post processing skill set is fabulous.

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Kira DeDecker is an on-location lifestyle pet photographer specializing in one-of-a-kind fine art and modern portraits. She works exclusively with dogs, cats and all other four legged creatures to create vibrant, quirky and soulful works of art.She also photographs needy animals pro-bono for non-profit animal organizations (like Cavalier Rescue USA).

Kira DeDecker Photography is a editorial and commercial pet photographer based in Glendale AZ and serves the Metro Phoenix area (Scottsdale, Peoria, Phoenix, Suncity, Surprise, Goodyear, Avondale and Tempe) and beyond.

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The List 
The Daily Dog Tag 1,2,3,4,5,6
Hair of the Dog 1,2,3
Pretty Fluffy 1,2
Itty Bitty & Fluffy 1,2,
Healthy Paws 
PAWSH Magazine & Studio
Joy Session 1,2,3
Beautiful Beasties 1,2,3,4

Kira DeDecker | info@kiradedecker.com | Arizona Pet Photography