This is an odd-eyed Siamese cat. I don’t think I have seen one before…
This is just another example of easy and relatively minor photoshopping. I am not saying it is good work. It only took me about 25 minutes. I cut out the yellow eye (not literally!) from a genuine odd-eyed cat (see below) and placed it over the blue eye of the Siamese cat. I had to tidy up the eye before pasting it over and I also tidied up the area around the eye after placing it so that it blended in more naturally. I also altered the shape of the eye and its angle so that it fitted the space more accurately.
I darkened the yellow eye slightly too. The idea was to make it more subtle, less in-your-face.
I also had to enlarge the pupil of the yellow eye to match the pupil of the blue eye on the Siamese cat. The pupil is the dark area in the middle of the eye. I did this through cloning. You copy a tiny part of the image, in this case a dark area and clone that area over the iris. It is done at pixel level. In other words, the image is greatly enlarged so you see the actual pixels (the building blocks of the image).
It looks unreal because it is unreal. Here is the original odd-eyed cat:
The medical term for odd-eyes is: heterochromia iridum. It is caused by the white spotting gene (piebald gene) or a gene that makes a cat white all over ( dominant white gene – “W“), which also takes the color out of the iris of the yellow eye making it blue. Blue eyes are blue because they lack pigment. The blue color is due to the dispersal of light within the iris. Are there any odd-eyed Siamese cats? The gene that gives the Siamese its special coat is not one of the genes mentioned. It does not remove pigment from eyes as far as I am aware. Sarah Hartwell will tell me about that!
Thanks for that info about baby powder. I had no idea. I disagree with the rules because it’s like putting on makeup. Perhaps that is what cat shows are: beauty pageants in the human-style.
Michael,
Years ago when I was extremely active in cat clubs and shows (I had completed all my requirements to apply to the judging program in CFA), the aroma of baby powder wafted through the aisles of the long-hair exhibitors.
Apparently it was not against show rules to use baby powder during the grooming process. It seems that baby powder helps to fluff the coat. It is not considered “cheating”. BUT coloring paw pads and nose leather is a huge no-no. I observed one particular breeder with a Seal-Point Siamese color the cat’s paw pads and a bit on the nose leather- and was eliminated by the judge. The color of that cat’s paw pads and nose leather were cinnamon colored, not a rich deep brown.
You are absolutely correct about photoshopping to enhance a cat’s appearance, making it extremely tempting for unscupulous breeders selling cats on the Internet to use this process. It is a darned shame-