I took this of my best friends son. I think it is just beautiful (because the model is) but the background is a problem. I have tried every method I know to soften the background but I am having a terrible time making it look unedited. You help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Beautiful portrait, beautiful little boy. The skin and eyes are really good. Great lighting.
Jade plant.. Like pnicholls a vignette might work nicely here. I'd blur the b\g a bit then try the vignette, feathered.
If that didn't work then I'd remove the plant....completely.
Then I played with the spotlights until I got really good lighting on his face. I made a few adjustments after that in Levels and Contrast because the lighting was too glaring.
I'm not sure it's exactly what you want for this picture, but thought I'd point out the technique -- I use it a lot on pictures that have lousy backgrounds I want to de-emphasize.
I will try to vignette. Ruthiek, I never thought about lighting effects, that's a great idea. Your rendition, and thank you so much for doing that, is a little dramatic (artsy) that's not a bad thing but I am going to try that technique with a little less effect.
I'll have to also check out Tim's tutorial.
And, everybody. Thank you for the compliments. I took this photo just after I got my camera last August and I was trying out b&w. This was taken with natural light, I think you could probably tell that. Thanks again.
It's a lovely photo - you've caught his expression at just the right moment.
I agree the background is distracting, but I must admit that the picture of the boy is so compelling it's not critical.
That said, if you could take some more and use a wider aperture to give shallow depth of field, throwing whatever background you choose out of focus, and also choose a plainer background, I think you'd have a competition winner.
I must admit that I find Ruthiek's version interesting but prefer the original.
Using some clever photoshop can definitely help blur backgrounds but it does take some practice in using the selection tools and so on to get a result that looks neat and professional.
I obviously didn't do this very carefully or anything, but this is a combination of blur and dodge tools. I'd probably darken the background a bit but I kind of liked the texture left, rather than simply replacing the entire background with a solid color.
Edited to remove my photo and preserve valuable bandwidth. Nice job crab! (see below)
Konador, what a dramatic difference. I have a suggestion for you to try, take you before picture and duplicate the layer. Set the top layer to multiply. I used that technique (I admit it) on my Northwest Moss photo. Just reduce the opacity of the top layer some.
I have tried the dodge & burn, and I do OK until I get close to his face and just can't get it right. Anywho, thanks!
It's a lovely photo - you've caught his expression at just the right moment.
I agree the background is distracting, but I must admit that the picture of the boy is so compelling it's not critical.
That said, if you could take some more and use a wider aperture to give shallow depth of field, throwing whatever background you choose out of focus, and also choose a plainer background, I think you'd have a competition winner.
I must admit that I find Ruthiek's version interesting but prefer the original.
Using some clever photoshop can definitely help blur backgrounds but it does take some practice in using the selection tools and so on to get a result that looks neat and professional.
:D
He is a beauty, isn't he. I wish he was mine, but, alas. Xavier lives in another state but next time I'm in Utah, I will take better photos of him.
I obviously didn't do this very carefully or anything, but this is a combination of blur and dodge tools. I'd probably darken the background a bit but I kind of liked the texture left, rather than simply replacing the entire background with a solid color.
This looks like a crumpled paper background, very interesting. The problem is that I just can't get it to look natural, at least not yet. I will just leave the bg the way it is if I can't make it look right. Thanks everybody!
That's as lovely a portrait of the boy's face as I have seen. If this was my shot, I would select the background and do some heavy duty blurring, or use layers to use another background instead of this one. I use PSP and don't know what editing program you use, but it should be similar in both PSP and PS.
OK, no offense to anyone else but this is perfect. It's seamless! I should have sent you my original! Will you please tell me the technique you used? Thanks!
I did a lasso mask around the boy, inverted it, feathered it 5 px. Then hit the delete key to remove the selected background. I then did a gradient fill for the background while it was still lasso selected. A quick clone with the wild stamp to bring he hair line back and a clone with a soft brush around the cheeks to make them look more natural.
I did a lasso mask around the boy, inverted it, feathered it 5 px. Then hit the delete key to remove the selected background. I then did a gradient fill for the background while it was still lasso selected. A quick clone with the wild stamp to bring he hair line back and a clone with a soft brush around the cheeks to make them look more natural.
WOW!!! Absolutely wonderful! I like this better than the blurred one. Thank you so much. And thank you for the instructions.
joanns, that is an incredible portrait, but after what crabappl3 did to it, it's just amazing! I, also, thank you crabappl3 for the instructions - I have a couple of things that I can't wait to try this on, but...what the heck is the "wild" stamp?? I have Photoshop 7, and I've never heard of this.
yup! great crabby! lasso with feathered edge, and the guassian blur?
Very much like what I did here. There was a pile of birthday presents, and coats in the background before I did this edit.
