2008 My Gorgeous Bengal 3219

Nice comp.....and detail...

If it were me....(and it's not)...I would do a little "painting with light" on the eyes...to bring up the detail....

Congrats...

I'll give it a try. Maybe that would come out better if it was in color? M

edit: I tried that and it's not much difference. Maybe I did it wrong. M

A real attention grabber of an image... and he's a handsome fellow, too. Here's an example of a little highlights work. I hope you don't mind and if so, I'll be glad to remove it... Regardless, a great shot... Mike

Bengals are one of the most beautiful cat´s and it shows here... Love it´s eyes and the lines in the fur is so gorgeous... Up close and personal... I like it...

All my best, Jill

Beautiful capture well compose, very good light

well done

Best regards

Bart

Wonderful shot. Great detail. Love those cats!

As for the eyes, a slightly different focus would have made a difference. Notice how the bridge of the nose is in more focus than the eyes. That's a tricky thing about close ups, the tendency to miss focusing on the eyes because they are set back. Of course, one doesn't always want the eyes super sharp (me included), and people often tend to over sharpen them in post processing which I'm not advocating. I think a bit of nuanced focusing here would have helped accomplish suggested and what you seem to want. In your original, the mouth area is getting most of the ambient light. That could be adjusted slightly in post processing so that the overall lighting draws more attention to the eyes. Beyond that, if you're going to work with lightening the eyes themselves, I'd consider raising the higher levels so that the catch lights have a little more zing rather than lightening up the eyes completely. Perhaps what the eyes want is a bit more contrast rather than a simple lightening.

Fred,

Actually this isn't a close up at all. It's a shot I cropped extremely. I just thought he looked really good like this. I did have to edit some highlights on the chin in lightroom. I think I took this photo a little too casually. I have been trying to get a genuine close up of him to replace this one, but he is very hard to shoot. He never stops moving. Sigh... I love him so. (Here is the original).

What a beautiful cat; beautiful portrait of him too! Thank you for sharing. :)