There have been a lot of new cafe kittens coming into Neko Ngeru recently, and I managed to get down for a quick visit to meet Pooka, the little tuxedo live wire.
He has a passion for food which you can see in the first photo. Pooka does his best to help himself to your biscuit or sandwich with such a charming look that keeping him off the cafe’s tables is a real challenge.
A word about the cafe kitten photos
I used camera settings that were pretty terrible because I was trying manual when Av (Nikon A) would have been a better option. The light was not bright and a faster shutter speed might have helped. I think even a smartphone or compact would have taken better photos that day.
All of the photos of Pooka came out very dark, like the cafe kitten above and at first, I was disappointed – UGH. Then, I took a breath and decided to load the photos into an editing program (Affinity Photo) to see if I could rescue them from blurry darkness. While you can’t rescue every photo you take. Unless you try things out in ‘post-production’ (when you load them on your computer or in a photo app) you will never know what might be awesome under the dark blur.
Here’s the tools I used to see Pooka:
- By lightening the exposure.
- Adjusting the shadows/highlights and,
- then using a bit of dodging (see link below)
I was able to brighten Pooka’s face and the shirt in the background. Isn’t he just the cutest kitten ever?
Pooka and his brother Patch are going for their family trial this week-end so I wish them good luck on their big adventure.
Marjorie is a blogger, award-winning photographer and smartphone moviemaker who loves cats.
He is just adorable and I love that he is food motivated MOL. I would so love to have a cat again but cannot as Layla is petrified of them. Great Photos as always and thanks for the blog hop
Pooka is absolutely precious. I always have such a hard time with lighting in manual mode! I will have to try those tools on some of my dark photos.
My photos were terrible. I have a way to go to learn about manual mode.
So cute!
Oh what a cutie Pooka is!
They are such cuties. I hope their trial is a success. XO
Pooka’a an adorable little tuxie! I hope he gets a home soon!
He has gone for a trial with a family (and his brother went too!)
Pooka is adorable! We’re glad you were able to edit the photo afterwards. It’s beautiful.
Pooka is such a darling fellow we know he will capture someones heart like he does to snacks he sees. Purrs Pooka. We do a lot of “Auto” setting photos and I need to work on that. I use PaintShop for making stuff and it is pretty good at fixing those that need it. Yeah, gotta learn more about that too!
Pooka has stolen my heart, too…but NZ is way way far away. LOL!
Terrific photos, he is totally adorable!