I had a great test shoot in the foyer of my house last night.  Earlier that night I was reviewing some of Zack Arias' images and blog which inspired me to get off the couch and shoot, shoot, shoot!  I shot the images using an off camera flash with a shoot through umbrella and tethered the camera to the laptop to review image sharpness and lighting (since my 20D has such a small screen).  I tooled around to find the best settings for me and eventually had my beautiful wife step in along with our ferocious Tigger as models.  These images are straight out of the camera, no adjustments made.  In the end everything worked out well and I'm happy with the results.  In the next shoot I'll use my softbox and see if I can focus the light on only the models in hopes to eliminate the background to pure black.  I'll post those images at that time.