Richard Manning

Catherine Wheel I Like Cats And Dogs 1996

The cat on the girls lap and the cat on the carpet in the shadow of the girls were the only cats in the main image. The other twenty one cats were shot over a period of time, minus the girls, with the camera on a tripod and same exposure and lighting. The cats were on separate scans, so with the Lasso tool set at a five or six Pixel Feather, the cats on the carpet I cut out including some of the carpet. This way I was able to keep the natural softness and by using a Layer mask blend the carpet to the carpet on the base including any natural cast shadows also. The two cats going through the doorway on the right I included some floor and the shadow on the wall plus layer Mask. The cat on a chair behind these two cats I cut out the whole section of the opening. The cat on the shelf above these cats in the main room I cut along the straight edge of the shelf, up the side of the books and then Quick Mask mode round the cat. Along to the left of this cat are two cats on the shelf in front of a picture, so I cut all this section and blended. There are four cats in boxed shelves behind the girls heads. These were cut out including the shelves and the girls hair replaced with a layer Mask in each case. The remainder were treated in the same way and layer Masks used in each case to blend them to the base image.

Hipgnosis Album Art