Black and rust, every marking where it really is
Every rottweiler wears the same markings, a dot over each eye, rust on the cheeks and muzzle, two triangles on the chest, and no two wear them the same way. The size of those dots and the shape of the triangles are how friends tell your rottie from every other, and your photo is where the artwork takes them from.
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How this coat prints
A rottie is a black dog with rust trim, and black is the one colour a black shirt can't print: where the coat is truly black, no ink goes down and the fabric shows through. On the photo presets that leaves the rust markings and the shine along the skull to carry the whole head, which looks dramatic from a bright photo and like a tan mask in a hole from a dim one. That's why neither shirt here is black. On mid-grey the black coat is the darkest thing on the shirt and the rust the warmest, and on sage, a muted green, the rust looks redder still. If you want black anyway, give it a photo with real highlights in the coat.
The photo to use
A short black coat only shows its shape where light skims across it, so put the light to one side, a doorway or window to the left or right of the dog, rather than directly behind you, which flattens the head into a silhouette. Make sure the eyebrow dots are lit: they're small, they sit right above dark eyes, and they're what makes a rottie's expression read. Shoot from about chest height while the dog sits; from above, the broad skull foreshortens and the muzzle looks stubby.
Presets that suit this dog
One Ink prints a rottie exactly the way this page describes: the black coat is left as bare shirt, and the single bone-coloured ink lands on the rust markings and the shine along the skull.
A pink strawberry shake with whipped cream and a cherry, sipped through a striped straw by the most serious face in the house, is the entire joke; the more solemn the rottie, the better it lands.
Star-Spangled draws the dog in cream strokes inside a big red, white and blue star, so a rottie's grin and rust eyebrow dots become some of the brightest marks on the shirt.
Questions
Should a black-and-tan dog get a black shirt?
For One Ink, yes: there the shirt is meant to be the shadow. For the photo scenes it's the riskiest choice, because the black of the coat merges into the fabric. Grey, sage, chambray or ivory keep the whole dog, and the preview lets you compare before you decide.
In photos the eyebrow dots look like a second pair of eyes. Will the shirt do that too?
Only if the real eyes are in shadow. Give the face soft light from the front so each eye has a catchlight, and the eyes read as eyes while the dots read as eyebrows.
My rottie is still a puppy. Will the shirt look like him later?
It will look like the puppy in the photo, which is the point of a puppy shirt. A rottie's markings stay in the same places as it grows, so the pattern on the shirt stays his even after the proportions change.
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