Photoshop alert

Behold! The winner of the 2009 Irish Setter Rescue calendar.
“Gee, what a great picture! Tasha exploding into a sunset field full of birds fleeing.”
Um, I hate to burst your bubble, guys; but I detect Photoshop® dickering.
Clip Tasha out of a picture of her exploding into a backyard, and paste into dramatic birds-fleeing-at-sunset picture.
Easy as pie! —I’ve done it myself.
Clipped my macho brother-from-Boston off his Harley and pasted him onto a merry-go-round horse backwards, because he noisily insisted merry-go-rounds rotate clockwise (viewed from above).
“I got this fabulous shot of 89 bazilyun birds fleeing a sunset field. I’ll just paste Tasha on it.”
Two things give this away.
—1) The difference in lighting. Tasha is lighted one way, and the sunset another.
Perhaps some artificial light — a flash — was used on Tasha, but it doesn’t look like flash.
It looks like ambient cloud daylight; hardly a flash or a sunset.
—2) No camera will focus a background and a foreground razor-sharp.
-The birds are at infinity, and are razor-sharp.
-Yet Tasha is quite sharp in the very close foreground.
The camera has auto-focused Tasha exploding out a back door.
I’ve submitted photos to this contest myself, but not Photoshopped.
I have a feeling the calendar judges aren’t aware of the wonders of Photoshop.

• A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter dog rescued from bad home; e.g. a puppy-mill. Our current dog is a rescue Irish Setter, our third. —By getting a full-grown rescue dog, we avoid puppydom; but the dog is often messed up. Our current dog is our sixth Irish Setter.