Help me save this photo..

cmason

All the great layer mask tutorials got me thinking I could turn this photo into something good. The issue is that I had the lens stopped down too much, and while the subject is very good, the background is distracting, and too much in focus. (appologize for screening the face, but this isn't my daughter, and I prefer discretion)




Is it possible to use layer masks to blur the background to fix in photoshop what I didn't do in the field? I would like the soccer play to pop out, and be separate from the background. I gave it a try, but it looked too artificial. Maybe someone knows a better way...

Thanks for your advice.

jfriend

Techniques for blurring a background

cmason wrote:

All the great layer mask tutorials got me thinking I could turn this photo into something good. The issue is that I had the lens stopped down too much, and while the subject is very good, the background is distracting, and too much in focus. (appologize for screening the face, but this isn't my daughter, and I prefer discretion)

Is it possible to use layer masks to blur the background to fix in photoshop what I didn't do in the field? I would like the soccer play to pop out, and be separate from the background. I gave it a try, but it looked too artificial. Maybe someone knows a better way...

Thanks for your advice.

Here's a mini discussion of techniques for blurring the background. In a nutshell, I make two layered copies of the image. Mask or delete the background from the top copy so that the unblurred foreground is on a top layer with no background.

Then, remove the foreground from the middle layer so that all you have is the background with the foreground transparent. Because of how you do the blurring, you need to physically remove the foreground, you can't just mask out the foreground.

Lock transparency on the middle layer. Blur the middle layer an amount that matches the most blur you want to see in the background. I use Lens Blur, but Gaussian blur can work too. Make sure not to do blur too much or it won't look realistic.

Then, use a mask on the middle layer (usually with one or two gradients) to fade the blur from foreground to background so the background that's at the same distance as the foreground object is not blurred and the farthest away background is blurred the most.

I've found that the two keys to making this work are to 1) remove the foreground object from the blur layer. This keeps any of it's edges from blurring into the background and making for ugly edges and 2) Lock transparency before blurring so none of the transparent pixels are blurred into the background. The above link will show you why these are required for a good result.

There are other ways to do this too, but this is what has worked for me.

A google search for "blur background photoshop" yields many other interesting articles on the topic.

wxwax

I've tried it in the past and it's tough.

Remember, if you're trying to mimic a narrow depth of field, both the foreground the background will be out of focus. The central area won't have a hard line demarking where the focus becomes sharp, it will be gradual. You'll have to think a bit in 3D to pull it off, I reckon. Not easy.

LittleLew

It is semi-easy to do what you asked but harder to make a good picture out of it.
The girl is too small and 'far away'
I would crop it like this.
The layer mask would be infinitely better with a higher res image.

jcdill

cmason wrote:

Is it possible to use layer masks to blur the background to fix in photoshop what I didn't do in the field? I would like the soccer play to pop out, and be separate from the background. I gave it a try, but it looked too artificial. Maybe someone knows a better way...

Here's how I would go about doing this.

1) Duplicate the layer.

2) On the duplicate layer, use filter -> extract and draw around the player and ball. Then paint the rest of the image and "extract" it. This will be your background.

3) Blur the background.

4) Apply a gradient layer mask to the blurred background, so that the foreground is masked (the original layer then shows thru) and the blurred background is revealed. This will result in a gradual blur of the background, similar to how it would appear if you shot with a shallow DOF. You need the foreground up to the grass under the player in focus, only the grass (and distractions) behind the player will be blurred.

The resulting image will have your original (sharp) foreground and player, with a blurred background revealed with the gradient mask. If you want, you can duplicate the background layer and apply another mask to also reveal some of the near foreground, to blur the grass closest to the camera. See this shot:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kirkbrooks/235984994/in/set-72157594271943430/

For an example of what you want to achieve. That was shot at f4.5.

Good luck!

jc

cmason

Thanks for the input. As I said, I gave this try before and it looked artifical.

Good tips on creating more than one layer, and I love the idea of a gradient to solve for the issue that the blur actually is progressive as you move away from the subject.

Oh and good tip on adding blur to the foreground as well.

Looks like I have lots of homework...

jfriend

Here's one

cmason wrote:

All the great layer mask tutorials got me thinking I could turn this photo into something good. The issue is that I had the lens stopped down too much, and while the subject is very good, the background is distracting, and too much in focus. (appologize for screening the face, but this isn't my daughter, and I prefer discretion)

Is it possible to use layer masks to blur the background to fix in photoshop what I didn't do in the field? I would like the soccer play to pop out, and be separate from the background. I gave it a try, but it looked too artificial. Maybe someone knows a better way...

Thanks for your advice.

This attempt was done with the steps I outlined in my previous message with the additional steps of cropping and cloning out extraneous background items. This might be a tad too much blur. You can dial in however much you think looks natural. Notice how I make sure the ground that is at the same distance as the soccer player is not blurred and the blur gradually fades from there in both the forward and backward directions.

cmason

Wow!! John, that looks great, the cloning is exceptional.

I know this sounds silly, but I didn't even consider cloning! ! I was so intent on solving the blur issue...well, nevermind...HAHAHA!

jfriend

Layers palette

cmason wrote:

Wow!! John, that looks great, the cloning is exceptional.

I know this sounds silly, but I didn't even consider cloning! ! I was so intent on solving the blur issue...well, nevermind...HAHAHA!

If you are cloning and blurring, the cloning job can go quicker because you don't have to do that great a job cloning because you are going to blur it after you've cloned. You can't be too sloppy, but the blur will hide lots of small imperfections.

Here's the layer's palette from my retouch: