dss16 last minute help

cmorganphotography

I like this portrait but not sure where to go on processing. Any c + c welcome. I have photoshop, so - suggest away!

pathfinder

The background is brighter than the subject ( you? ) in the fore ground.

If it were my image, I think I might try to dial down the brightness and the saturation of the background, and warm up the color balance and lighten the subject just a bit. Or replace the background entirely as I discussed here

If you want I might be able to show you what I mean by tomorrow night. It is late tonight here.

I am moving this thread to Finishing School, as the discussion is really about post processing, not shooting technique.

cmorganphotography

Ok thank you.
I can play with it all. I also got a couple suggestions on the background. I'll wait a while for other people to throw their 2 cents in and then come back with a medium image and go from there.

cmorganphotography

pathfinder wrote:

The background is brighter than the subject ( you ) in the fore ground.

If it were my image, I think I might try to dial down the brightness and the saturation of the background, and warm up the color balance and lighten the subject just a bit. Or replace the background entirely as I discussed here

If you want I might be able to show you what I mean by tomorrow night. It is late tonight here.

I am moving this thread to Finishing School, as the discussion is really about post processing, not shooting technique.

You're really good at taking an image and showing the example, at your leisure, I've already done 3 versions tonight, and I'm kinda whupped. Help?

pathfinder

I looked at your gallery cmorgan, why are you asking me about compositing?

Folks, take a look at the work here - http://cmorganphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/6768475_hyFxx#439787733_v9o9m

Anyway, I just selected the background to blur it about 30 pxls worth, and pulled the curve down for the background as well. This is from your small image here on line so it could be done much better with the full image of course. My selection about your chin could have been better I see.

cmorganphotography

pathfinder wrote:

I looked at your gallery cmorgan, why are you asking me about compositing? Folks, take a look at the work here - http://cmorganphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/6768475_hyFxx#439787733_v9o9m
My selection about your chin could have been better I see.

Ok. Now I have to ask how the hell you made such a smooth damn pull of him? I do it and it looks all jagged. Your chin choice was quite a damn bit better than I, and I know what he looks like in real life. I've tried defringing my layers and feathering and it would seem I'm still a jackass about it.
Thank you for the promo. I get bored and mess with my portraits. It makes me feel pretty good that pathfinder finds my ps musin' post worthy.

pathfinder

I basically just followed the recipe I posted here

Full size images take longer to get your selection, but actually are easier in some ways than smaller web images which are harder to select well I think sometimes.


After you have made your selection of the subject and copied it with cmd-j to a new top layer, you frequently have to go back to the upper background layer and clone from the non - selected area to the selected area so that when you run your Gaussian Blur on it, you don't just smear the tones of the selected area out as a halo.

So I clone from outside the selection to inside the selection before I run the GB on the copied background layer, so that the whole image has the same color and tones when I finish the GB and any curves I do. Then when I turn the very top layer back on with the subject sharply outlined, it looks correct and without halos.

Am I explaining this adequately?

I did another one with a sky I had hanging around and being lazy. Not the ideal sky, but it does demonstrate that a proper overcast sky could work here I think.

cmorganphotography

Patience. You have a lot of patience. Thank you. I'll play some more and try to get a nice sky shot at some point and give it a whirl, or just go with the gradient suggestion I got on the people forum. Thanks again.:D

cmorganphotography

Ok.
I played with it and threw in my own flavor. I used everyone's advice - blur, gradient, textures, tones, contrast... and then put my spin on it.

"SMILING IN THE RAIN"



COmments and help welcome. I'm using this image and these suggestions for dss 16.