This little piggy...

... went to market.

[finished image on my [url=http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/1403275]Kinda Horrigans[/url] journal]

Whereas this little me wanted to stay at home!

Not a lot of editing and (sorry for saying it!) yet another bad day for photography for me. Took this shot when I got back from work and the light wasn't great - hence a wide open aperture of f/1.8 and ISO at 320, shutter speed of 1/100 - enough that I could take the shot hand-held. Just!

To process it I nudged up the clarity by +30 for the RAW file and then opened in Photoshop. I wanted a black and white, low key shot so used Silver Efex Pro and started with a low key preset and tweaked it with brightness and contrast until it felt right. Often if I do that, I save the settings as a new preset so that it gives me a starting place for future shots.

Then, back in Photoshop, I duplicated that layer and did the spotlight trick - Filter > Render > Lighting Effects and used a large omni filter to brighten the detail of the toes. Added in one more layer - the 50% neutral grey overlay blend layer to dodge the lighter areas just slightly.

Sharpened, flattened and saved.

Tip of the day:
I do love low key photography - and there are 20 examples here to give you some ideas and me a bit of drooling time!