Before & After - Fixing the Background

This is Mak. He's one of the dogs I photographed for the calendar. I got several really good shots of him and this is one of my favourites. Unfortunately the background was messy (you'll see in a minute) so I decided to replace it. I often tidy up a background, especially in photos taken outside, but I don't usually do anything this extensive.



The photo already was a fairly formal studio portrait, which made the choice of what to do with the background easy. Here is the before & after shot (I didn't really need to label them, did I?):



And once the background has been created, why stop at grey? Here Mak is again with brown, red, & blue backgrounds. I think the brown might be my favourite, in the end, even though I expected to like the grey best. The brown tone was chosen based on the tan colour on his leg, so it shouldn't be surprising that he looks so good with it.



Which one do you like best?