# Photographing a Black Bunny



## MikeScone (Oct 24, 2010)

As I've discovered lately since the lovely Natasha Rabbitova has become the Head Bunny of our warren, it can be a problem getting good pictures of bunnies with all-black fur. Basically, without a little extra work, what you tend to get is black, roughly bunny-shaped blobs in the picture. If that's what you're getting, try these tricks to getting pictures of black bunnies to turn out well. 

First, if there aren't any highlights in the rabbit's fur, there's nothing you can do to make the bunny stand out - so make some. You need to use flash to create those shiny highlights in the fur (see Flash - on and off camera). 

Then, the picture needs to be processed. Let's look at a picture I took earlier today. I used my Nikon D300 and an SB-600 external flash unit. This is what the image looked like, "as is", right out of the camera:







First, I cropped the picture to emphasize Natasha (nearly all pictures can benefit from some cropping and straightening):





Then, I used the "Levels" adjustment in PhotoShop (shortcut is ctrl-L) to adjust the white and black levels. What I usually use as a reference is the inside of Natasha's ears - they should be white, not dull grey. This is what the Levels adjustment looks like:





The lumpy looking thing labeled "Input Levels" is a histogram - a graph of the amount of pixels in the image which are a given tone level, from black (on the left) to white (on the right). Notice that the graph shows big peaks on the left (that's the black bunny and the dark background), and it sort of tails off to nothing about two-thirds of the way across. That point where the graph becomes flat is the lightest point in the picture - look down to the section labeled "Output Levels", and you'll see that point corresponds with a mid-grey color, which means there's really nothing in the picture which is really white. 

I want the lightest point in the picture to be white, not grey, so I slide the white triangular slider leftward (see the red arrow) until the lightest point is white. A trick here is to hold down the "Alt" key while you're doing that, and the screen becomes black. As soon as you see a white detail appear, stop - that point is now white. If you move the slider too far you'll wash out details, and you don't want to do that. Do the same for the black slider (blue arrow), if the left side of the histogram is flat, too (it isn't, here, so I leave the black slider alone). 

That results in this picture: 





That's better, but I still want to Natasha's fur to shine. 

There are two ways to accomplish that - when you're adjusting levels, move the grey level slider (yellow arrow ) until the highlights in the fur look good. That will work in any version of PhotoShop, or in PhotoShop Elements, if you're using that program. Other programs have similar controls, but you'll have to figure out what they are. 

If you've got PhotoShop CS2 or later, there's a better tool - use the Image|Adjustments|Shadows and Highlights control to lighten the "shadows". I find about 30% shadows adjustment works very well:





And there you are! Black bunny with shiny fur...


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## Pet_Bunny (Oct 24, 2010)

*MikeScone wrote: *


> Other programs have similar controls, but you'll have to figure out what they are.
> If you've got PhotoShop CS2 or later, there's a better tool - use the Image|Adjustments|Shadows and Highlights control to lighten the "shadows".



There is a simple adjustment on your Nikon D300, other advanced cameras would have this feature also. If I know I am shooting a black bunny, Iincrease the brightness control on the Nikon D300 (+0.7 or +1.0 EV). This brightens the black when you take the picture. If you can do it with the camera, then it would be less work with Photoshop.






Taken with a Nikon D300 and a SB-800 flash unit.

F/3.2, 1/160s, ISO 400, +0.7EV, 24mm, manual mode.


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## Pet_Bunny (Oct 24, 2010)

Here is the original picture. I use Capture NX2 for cropping and adjustments.


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