Editing a Black Blob Cat Photo

The curse of the black blob cat photo… Cue horror movie screams and dramatic creepy music!

I have to admit it, black cats aren’t easy especially if you don’t have enough light, or as here, too much light against a white background.

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I mean, look at this first photo. You will struggle to see what Taz is doing and, as I did not have my zoom lens on my Nikon Z50 I could not get closer without disturbing him. Be honest, it’s disappointing, but wait…

There is hope for my black blob, I wrote about masks and now I hope to show how effective a mask can be to bring an images of a black cat back from the drink of disaster.

TOP TIP If you can, shoot in RAW (details on RAW here) this nudges your amount of information so much that you collect a lot and I DO mean a LOT!) more fine details, like Taz’s shot. RAW has other names like NEF for Nikon so check your brand. RAW is available on most DSLR/Mirrorless cameras and more modern smartphones. Basic RAW.

Improving And Masking

Th first thing I did, and which you can do, to add focus to your cat photo is to crop.

Here you can see I was careful to keep both Taz and the rock in frame (you will see why soon). Removing a lot of background is easy and effective. You can play with your crop, remove it, adjust it until you are happy, and focus your viewer’s attention on the most important matter – your cat.

Using Luminar Neo I followed these steps:

• I used the Crop Tool to remove a lot of the wall and deck.
• Then I used the Mask in the Enhance Tool (each tool has a mask option).
• As you can see in the photo above, I asked the software to find Taz without me having to select his shape (which is time consuming and a pain in the tail). This is highlighted in deep red.
• NOTE: To do this I used a tool lots of photo editing software has called ‘object select‘. The software will find an object or you choose one.
• The Enhance tool uses simple AI to check your photo, and suggests colour adjustments or lightening you might like to consider.

I Cropped the Photo. Masked the Photo. Enhanced the Photo.

Three simple steps. (Yes, they do become simpler with practice!) The result is a precious and very funny memory. Taz seemed so comfortable resting his head on the sun warmed rock even with my less than perfect use of my new camera!

So, thanks to practice and Luminar Neo I have another happy photo to add to my collection.

• TIP Work on a copy of your image. This is usually a safe option. In your photo album, try a right click and see if ‘duplicate’, comes up as an option and work on that. This keeps your original image unharmed. Remember, edits can be small, simple and subtle. Start with a light touch and give it a try. See what you can do.

Please try RAW if you can. On a photo like Taz’s it can make a big difference.

Finally, if you are on Instagram, I recommend Black Cat Trails where you can follow the adventures of Ledges, Lenroot, Mays, Coal, and Pike. They are a wonderful family of black cats whose family take inspiring and beautiful black cat photos and videos.