Working with animals can come with certain challenges. Even the best pets can be unpredictable at times. I’ve seen the best trained dogs refuse to cooperate. I’ve also seen some of the wildest, untrained dogs be perfect. So, it is always interesting to see what we’ll get. The best way to prepare for the unknown is to be as prepared as possible in other areas. I always take a ton of photos with the products in place, both running and not. Then when the pet comes in, I try to get as many pics of their body and face at different angles. Here are some before and after photos from previous photo shoot.
Add a dog
This product is designed for multiple pets. As you can imagine, it’s difficult to find cats and dogs that will drink together on a photo shoot. They might do it at home, but photo shoots are different. It’s usually a strange location with strange people. The photography who shot these images uses strobes which sometimes makes pet nervous as well. So, we planned to fix this problem in Photoshop. We took photos of the cat drinking from one side. Then left everything the same, brought in the dog from the other side, and put them together in Photoshop.
Cat with fountain before 
Cat and dog with fountain
Add a new head
More often than not, the animal will have great body language but the head or face won’t be quite right, so we replace the head. Planning ahead makes this easier, but it’s not always a walk in the park. Think cat whiskers.
As you can see the head is down and not at all pleasing 
A new head added and before general clean up is done. 
Dog on Product Final
The cat’s body is fine, but the head is not good. 
A new head has been put in place using Photoshop.
The cat’s head is down. 
A new head has been added.
Plan Ahead
As with any photo shoot, it is important to plan ahead. But especially with pets!
