Ponyrazzi - Equine Photography Tutorials

Black Background Horse Portraits

Taking a black background portrait isn’t as hard as it looks. Here is an easy method for taking and editing a great shot.

Step 1: Find a Dark Doorway

Starting with the right location will make getting your shot easy. Look for a doorway to a stall, aisle, or arena where the interior is shadowed. Position the horse in the open doorway where light shining in will illuminate its face. Make sure the horse’s face and mane are in front of the darkest area of your background for easy editing later.

Step 2: Start editing

Once you have a photo you love, touch up the background to make it look flawless. Start by opening your photo in a photo editor. (I’m using Adobe^® Lightroom^® Classic, but Adobe^® Photoshop^® or another photo editing software will also work.) Decrease the exposure, shadows, or blacks to make the background completely black right around the horse. Move the highlights slider to the right a bit to brighten the subject.

Step 3: Darken the Background

Use the adjustment brush (or an adjustment layer and mask in Photoshop^®) and an exposure adjustment of -4.00 to paint around the horse. Use a feathered brush. Since the photo is already black right around your subject, do not worry about getting close to the edge of the horse.

If there are still any bright areas in the background, start a new adjustment and paint over them again.

Step 4: Soften Transitions

At this point, you have a perfect black background that you can adjust further to make the photo look more natural. Use a graduated filter with an exposure of -4.00 and drag from the border of the image toward the horse to blend the horse’s neck into the shadows.

Do the same thing on the horse’s hindquarters.

Step 5: Final Touches

Adjust the photo’s temperature, highlights, and clarity to finish the portrait.

Retouching Horses

It happens; you took a great photo, but your subject wasn’t quite clean… or maybe not even close. Here’s a quick method for making your subjects look their best using Adobe^® Lightroom^®.

Grab the spot removal tool, and start painting over any hay, shavings or dirt on your subject. Lightroom^® will do its best to patch the area by copying a similar one. If any of the fixes look wrong, drag the source selection to a clean area that looks like the area you are fixing. To resize circular spot removal locations, hover over the spot removal until the cursor changes to a double arrow, then click and drag.

Finished!

Golden Hour Tips

Nothing could be more beautiful than golden light on your favorite equine friend. Try photographing them at golden hour (the hour just after dawn or just before sunset) to get this effect. These tips will help you master the look.

1. Golden hour photos are best for warm colored horses. Chestnut, palomino, buckskin, cremello and bay horses look heavenly in the warm light. Black horses tend to look a bit orange during golden hour. If you have a black horse, be prepared to adjust the temperature of your photos in editing or try photographing them on an overcast day instead.
2. Set your exposure to avoid clipped highlights on your subject. Taking your photos in RAW file format will help ensure that you are able to brighten dark areas during post processing.
3. Never turn your lens directly towards the sun. It’s dangerous to your camera and your eyes! Shoot at a slight angle or place your subject between you and the sun and use it as a shield.

Golden hour looks every bit as awesome on barn wood as it does on horses.

ISO 1600, f/5.0, 1/100 sec

Backlight at golden hour can make your horse glow.

ISO 100, f/1.5, 1/125 sec

Add Personality in Post Processing

A super-simple photo of a horse can become so much more with a little editing. This image gains a completely different look with adjustments to its exposure, shadows, and color.

Changing the exposure makes the subject look magical.

This shadowy version brings out the horse’s soulful eyes.

Adjustments saturated the cool shadows and warm highlights in this vibrant remix.