Diana Magor, MPSA, APSA  

Cheetah by Diana Magor, MPSA, APSA

May 2025 - Cheetah

About the Image(s)

This was taken at Chester Zoo a few years ago and I've used it successfully in colour. At the moment I am watching '30 days of Lightroom' by PHLEARN because although I use Lr to start my workflow, there are so many bits I am hopeless at, including how to use masks effectively.
I thought I'd start with something relatively simple. So, I changed it to b&w and created a mask to darken the background and used remove to darken some of the lighter bits of vegetation which still showed through. Then I created a new mask of the cheetah as the subject and made a linear gradient to darken the left hand corner. Then I made a new linear gradient from the bottom right corner so I could increase the exposure on the muzzle, but had to subtract the area over the background. This sounds complicated but actually is very easy and it produced the effect I wanted, with the cheetah standing out from the background. So maybe in the future I will be able to do something similar when it is needed.
So, the message to myself and anyone else, is that masks in Lr are pretty easy and very useful!

12 comments posted

Ed Ogle   Ed Ogle
Nice shot. I would brighten the eyes and sharpen them. Also since it's so close to a square crop I would make it square. See my edit.   Posted: 05/05/2025 18:42:31
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Diana Magor   Diana Magor
I did wonder about lightening the eyes, but I'm not sure about the square crop. I quite like the negative space to the right, for him to be looking in to.
Do other people think the square is better?   Posted: 05/05/2025 18:46:25
Wes Odell   Wes Odell
On your image, it's difficult to tell since the black in the image blends in with the black of the screen   Posted: 05/06/2025 00:52:59
Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
Diana,

I quite like the space on the right and would have kept more if I had space in the original or used content-aware fill in Photoshop to create it.

But anyway, since we were on masks, I took it into Lightroom, selected the eye and used "Iris Enhance" in custom presets (this is standard in LR, not an extra preset which I have bought or created). Adding the screenshot to show where it is.   Posted: 05/06/2025 01:29:44
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Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
This is the iris enhanced version   Posted: 05/06/2025 01:40:59
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Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
I then took it into photoshop, and used a plug in called BW Muse pro (I am sure I could do the same in Nik or just by playing with contrast etc), which I find makes my BW edits much easier, it applies the effects in a new layer, and by lowering the opacity of the layer, I can ease off on the effect it applies initially (which sometimes looks overdone to me). Another screenshot, in case you are interested.   Posted: 05/06/2025 01:37:35
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Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
Finally, I closed the image in PS so it sent it back to LR, where I selected background again, reduced highlights, clarity and texture all the way to the left, to make the background a soft blur. And here is the final output   Posted: 05/06/2025 01:40:02
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Diana Magor   Diana Magor
Thanks - the soft blur was what I was after. I am trying to make more use of Lr but I still find Ps much easier because I have used it longer, but the masks in Lr are very useful. I haven't seen the Muse plug in before.   Posted: 05/07/2025 18:59:04
Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
The Muse plug in is from https://pixelexpand.com/downloads/bw-muse-panel-pro/

Expensive now, but I bought it at 1/4th the current price when they had a sale on
  Posted: 05/08/2025 00:09:53
Tom McCreary   Tom McCreary
I like the image, and it is a good use of monochrome. I had no idea that Lightroom can do so much -- I just use it to review images and make minor adjustments to RAW images. I need to look into using it more. I do like what Ed did with the image, it has plenty of room for the cheetah to look into.   Posted: 05/07/2025 18:50:44
Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
I do 90% of my work in Lightroom, sometimes I will open an images in PS, always from LR, make a few changes and close it, so that it automatically sends my image (with changes) back to LR. Another reason, for me to go into PS, is I want to use multiple plug-ins, so I can use say Topaz and then Nik Color Effex and when finished, send it back to LR. This avoids having multiple versions in LR. But LR is now so powerful, one could really live only with LR!
  Posted: 05/08/2025 00:08:21
Somdutt Prasad   Somdutt Prasad
There is a new version of Nik out, normally, I either skip versions, or wait to upgrade, but this one says you can carry photoshop masks into Nik and keep them when you switch Nik suites, so I just got it. Posting here as Silver Effex is something I use a lot.
  Posted: 05/08/2025 00:02:06

 

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