🐾 Wedding Portrait Edit — Groom & Dogs Composite

🎯 Client Request

The client approached me with a unique request — they had several beautiful photos from their wedding featuring:

• The groom with the bride and their dogs 🐶

• The bride with the dogs 🐕‍🦺
  However, photos of the groom with the dogs alone were missing from their collection.

The client wanted to have natural-looking images of the groom posing with each dog, keeping the tone, lighting, and background consistent with the original wedding photographs.

💡 The Challenge

At first, this sounded quite tricky. Creating realistic composites where people and animals appear naturally together requires:

• Matching light direction and color tones ☀️

• Aligning shadows and depth of field 🎨

• Ensuring both the groom and dogs appear emotionally connected and proportionally correct

Since the groom and dogs were photographed separately, achieving a cohesive look that felt authentic and candid was the main challenge.

🧠 My Approach

1. Photo Selection:
   I carefully analyzed all provided images to select the best angles of the groom that would match each dog’s posture and eye level.

2. Background and Lighting Match:
   I studied the lighting conditions and background blur (bokeh) from the original wedding photos to maintain consistency in the composites.

3. Composite Creation:
   Using Adobe Photoshop, I:

   • Extracted the groom and dogs using advanced masking and refinement tools.

   • Matched tones using selective color correction and curve adjustments.

   • Added realistic shadows and blended edges for natural interaction.

   • Adjusted exposure, warmth, and contrast to unify the scene.

   • AI Helped a lot

4. Final Touches:
   Subtle color grading was applied to bring the entire collection into a cohesive autumn wedding tone — warm browns, oranges, and greens.

Finally The Result

🖼️ Results

Below are examples of the final results after editing:

• The groom now appears with each dog, perfectly matched in lighting and emotion.

• The final portraits look candid and heartfelt, just like genuine wedding-day memories.

• The edits maintained a natural feel — no artificial look or lighting imbalance.

⚙️ Tools Used

• Adobe Photoshop — compositing, retouching, and color grading

• Adobe Lightroom — tone correction and overall color harmony

This project reminded me how attention to detail and storytelling through photo editing can recreate cherished moments that never actually existed in a frame. The satisfaction of seeing everything come together — lighting, expressions, and emotion — made this one of my favorite compositing projects.

If you have special photos that need retouching, compositing, or creative restoration, I’d love to help you bring them to life.

📩 Let’s create something timeless together!
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