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There seems to be this idea in people’s minds that taking photos of black dogs is the holy grail of photography. That they are somehow the most difficult coats to take photos of. In this how-to guide, I’m going to equip you with some tools to go confidently into your next photoshoot with a black dog, and begin to consider that they might actually be easier in some ways than, for example, coloured dogs.
It's All About Light
As with everything in photography, photographing black dogs is all about light. How much, where from, how strong, what temperature and so on. For some reason there seems to be this idea that while a “normal” dog can be photographed on overcast day, somehow the entire light of the entire sky won’t be enough to illuminate a black dog, so people try photographing them in the full sun.
All these dogs are so shiny. And I think the thing that gets me is that all this shine tends to make them look quite grey. People worry about lightening up black dogs cos they’ll turn grey, but then go and take photos of them in these conditions. Anyway.
If you’ve worked your way through ANY of the two non-editing courses (and I hope, if you’re here, that you have) you’ll know that harsh sunlight flatters NOBODY. Especially not black dogs.
In my opinion, black dogs go insanely shiny in full sun. SO SHINY. Some people really like this shine, but I find it kind of ugly. Maybe you have to make up your own mind here but it’s certainly not my favourite thing. Not to mention all the crazy shadows and tiny catchlights which come from taking photos in the full sun.
I would even go so far as to say that late afternoon light, when the temperature is warm, can also be problematic to black dogs when it is direct light, as their coats reflect colour so easily.
So now that I’ve completely terrified you away from taking photos of black dogs in any kinds of lighting conditions, what can you do?
As With Every Dog: Get Enough Light
The main thing, is to get soft, even, flattering light on the face. Like with every dog in every photo we’re taking.
Staying on the edge of the woods, in a clearing, or by a road will make sure plenty of light from the sky falls on the face. Check out the Locations lessons if you’re in the Learning Journey, under Creating > Locations. We want to avoid especially deep shadows, or situations where we need to really under-expose the dog so we don’t risk “clipping the blacks” or even just making the black dog so dark that trying to lighten him results in a lot of noise.
Balancing the Light
As with every dog and every photo we’re aiming to balance the light. This means (in general), highlights not blown out, BUT not underexposing so much that you can’t get detail back in the dog. This will be different for every camera, and varies for ISO. I know a friend’s camera will start to really show a lot of grain and loss of detail if she has to raise the shadows very much at ISO 320. Mine is pretty fine until it’s over ISO 1000. That being said, on photos like the one below, which is ISO 200, Loki is so underexposed that I had to raise the shadows a lot in order to simply SEE him. And this was extremely noisy.
So there is a balance between how much you can/need to lighten the black dog, the ISO, and what your camera can handle.
Focus Issues & Black Dogs
One problem I’ve heard from members of the LC is that their camera struggles to focus on their black dog, when they have to underexpose the image due to backlight or similar.
We talked about this in the March Q&A.
What we have to remember is that our cameras generally look for areas of contrast, to know where to focus. So when we have a black dog in an underexposed situation, especially if their face, eyes, or lighting situation don’t really give them catchlights in their eyes, we just have a black blob in front of the camera. So it looks around and goes 🤷🏻♀️ and focuses somewhere. Because there’s nothing to say: “This is one part of the subject, and this is another part”, it’s just all dark.
OR… it will find the shiny contrast of the dog’s nose, and focus there.
If this is happening, you have a few options:
- Make sure you’re using a single-AF point and positioning it over the eye. We need to not really give the camera a lot of options as to where to focus.
- Find an area with more light on the dog’s face, or even use a reflector to bounce more light onto the dog’s face. We really need to create some contrast for the camera to find, particularly in the eyes. Try also getting the dog to raise their face slightly, to get more light reflecting from the sky.
- Underexpose less. Yes, you may need to blow out the highlights. If the choice is between your dog not being in focus, and the highlights being slightly blown out… I know which is more important to me.
- If your camera is consistently focusing elsewhere even when there’s plenty of light on the dog, make sure you check out the focus lessons to try and diagnose the problem.
Backgrounds
Be very aware of your backgrounds with black dogs. We need to really help them stand out and be separated from their background, but also not be overwhelmed by their background (yes, it’s a balancing act!).
- Putting your black dog against a dark tree stump/trunk/dark bush is going to make him blend in, particularly if there are ANY bright areas in the image (eg., bits of open sky or bright bokeh spots)
- Putting your black dog against a very bright area might contrast him, but also he can get “overwhelmed” by the brightness, especially if it’s busy.
So, where can you put your black dog?
Solid, mid-toned backgrounds work very well. That means they aren’t too bright, and they aren’t too dark. The editing tutorial of Šaj below is a good example of a “mid-toned” background.
Backlight also works pretty well IF it’s well-filtered and not overpowering. This is because the rim light can help the dog have a lot of separation from the background. They are glowing, we can easily see the shape of them, and this glowing light draws our eyes to them as well.
1. Using backlight & rimlight for a dramatic black dog in dark environment photo. 2. Low-contrast, mid-tone background. 3. An example of when Loki is in a “dark area” and would easily become overwhelmed by the light areas of the photo. 4. Low contrast mid-tone. 5. Mid-toned background. 6. Backlight. 7. Putting him in a dark hole (I could edit this, but getting separation would be difficult still, but I could use it for a dramatic deep/dark forest effect IF he didn’t look so cute.). 8. Getting overwhelmed by light in the background. 9. Low contrast, mid-toned background. Light directly behind to contrast his dark. 10. A kind of “tunnel of light” (soft light) behind him, to contrast his dark fur against. Eye is drawn to the light -> dark dog is in the light. 11. Dark dark dark, but fun as a dramatic effect and certain mood. 12. Backlight to help her stand out. 13. Mid-toned background. 14. Mid-toned background (old photo, I would turn down the bokeh a bit more now). 15. Backlight and monotone colours.
Balancing Black & Grey
One of the other main issues people run into, is balancing black and grey. It’s very easy, when lightening up a black dog (especially when raising shadows!) to end up with a washed out grey dog!
And it is a balance. Without light, we can’t see the details of the dog. With too much lightening, we have a grey dog. The main thing to remember here, I think, is that our eyes make sense of things based on light AND dark. We can’t tell what is bigger or smaller, in or out, without areas of light and areas of shadow.
What I’m saying is, don’t be afraid of blacks and shadows. Our dogs are black. Without blacks and shadows, we loose the contrast that TELLS us they’re black. One of the ways I make my black dogs look lighter, is to contour their face with darkness. By adding darkness to the shadow/inward parts of their face, it gives contrast compared to the light parts of their face – essentially, making the light parts look lighter!
It’s like how if you’re editing a photo, and you have the background of Lightroom or Photoshop set to light grey or white. Your photo then probably seems really dark, right? Try setting the background to black. Now your photo looks really light!! Nothing has changed except the shade around the photo and the contrast for our eyes between the light and the dark.
These two images are exactly the same. Notice how the one on the black background looks much lighter and has more detail in the surroundings than the white background image?
So yes, we want to be able to see the details of a black dog. We also want to keep them a nice, rich black. Don’t be afraid of adding some contrast to their fur.
Contrast
One more note on contrast, is that contrast can help our dog stand out, if there is no contrast in the rest of the image. Our eyes are drawn to contrast, and contrast is particularly visible when compared to areas of low contrast. So, by making sure our dogs are a rich black with plenty of contrast, and removing contrast from their surroundings (by raising the blacks, for example), this will also help them to stand out.
Blue Dogs
Another thing to be conscious of is the fact that black dogs reflect colours – particularly blue. Blue dogs is one of the main issues I see with people editing black-coated dogs.
You can sometimes use the space between the dog’s eyes as a place for the “Eye-Dropper tool” in Lightroom, to tell it that the area should be pure black. But, this is assuming the dog IS pure black. Many dogs have a lot of red/brown undertones in their coat, even if it’s VERY subtle. I’m looking at Loki’s fur in the sun right now (and he is about as black as black gets, apart from the edges of his ears) and there is definitely brown in his coat. Therefore, if I used the eyedropper on his black coat, it would probably shift things too much to blue (cancelling out the yellow) or to green (cancelling out the magenta).
A better tool is to turn the saturation up to 100 and then adjust the white balance. Because the black coat is made up of brown (magenta/yellow), I will usually shift the white balance slightly to the warmer side of the spectrum as this is more likely to be “pure black”. I don’t worry about small areas of blue at the tip of the snout and between the ears. This is totally normal.
1. SOOC. 2. Saturation turned up to 100. 3. White balance adjusted. 4. White balance turned all the way up. (And I would say, he’s probably still slightly too cool!)
You can also add a hue/saturation layer in PS and turn the saturation all the way up. This is a MUCH stronger effect than in Lightroom so be careful what you do with it (eg., don’t try and remove ALL the blue/yellow/colour. Remember, our black coats are not pure black!)
So, how can you get to a more “pure black” colour in editing? (Because it’s totally normal and natural and just the way light and colour works that they will end up blue when taking photos of them. Don’t try and fight it, just take the photos in RAW so you have complete control over adjusting the WB later)
- Correct the white balance (this should solve the majority of problems).
- (Possibly) lower the blue saturation somewhat in the HSL panel in LR. Notice how tentative I am about this point? Because I do NOT want you to completely strip the colour from their coat!
- Use a radial filter to lower saturation from specific points, OR (maybe even better) add yellow to those areas.
- In Photoshop: Use a hue/saturation layer to lower saturation (be careful)
- Or, use a colour balance layer to add yellow (and maybe magenta) particularly to “shadows”
- Or, use a solid colour adjustment layer in yellow (the opposite of blue). Set the blend mode to “colour” or “hue”, and paint it over the blue areas. Lower the opacity, like a lot.
- If you are STILL having a lot of issues with blue, I would suggest your white balance is way too cool.
