Busy Background

[midimick]

I took this action shot today, but as you can see, the DOG was far too deep, and the background really interferes with the photo. Being such a bright day, though, there was not a lot I could do about that without overexposing it to heck.

I am still trying to get the hang of Photoshop, and I cant seem to properly blur only the background, giving the effect of a much shorter DOF. Was wondering if you guys can help - and then let me know so I can learn to do it too.

Cheers muchly.

Mick

[coffee]

I didn't get the chance to do any blurring of the background. I just ran out of the time it would take to see what type of blur would work the best, as well as the masking and painting it would take to isolate the subject from the background. But I did work on the exposure, color, a little sharpening and some noise reduction. Overall I think the picture is a little better balanced now.

[midimick]

Its those masking tricks that I really need to get a handle on. I have seen an artical that does a blur based on a gradient mask, which I am sure will get the DOF looking pretty right (keep the pool in focus, and gradually reduce that from there). Just how to isolate the subject without selecting every pixel is the big one that has me beat.

Cheers,

Mick

[coffee]

Its those masking tricks that I really need to get a handle on. I have seen an artical that does a blur based on a gradient mask, which I am sure will get the DOF looking pretty right (keep the pool in focus, and gradually reduce that from there). Just how to isolate the subject without selecting every pixel is the big one that has me beat.

Cheers,

Mick

Sometimes Mick there is no shortcut in what you want to do. There are many ways to blur the image, whether it be a Gaussian blur, motion or radial blur. You can blur the image using a radiant approach, or you can just blur the image globally. Either way you will have to apply a mask, and paint out the blur on the subject if that what you don't want blurred. This is very time consuming and tedious, but necessary if you want to make it look good. And yes, it one of those techniques where you will have to zoom way in, and use a brush to paint away the blur where you don;t want it. This is the reason I didn't add it to my edit. To make it look good and correct, it would take lots of time.

[coffee]

You can do something like this that is a global radial blur with less blur around the swimmers head, then more blur as it drops off from there. This is nothing but a one click PS affect. Of course some of the subject is in blur too, which has a nice affect I think. The second image has a little more blur except subject. The third has even more blur and less on subject. This affect is applied globally, a mask applied and the affect brushed out with a brush that has a large fall off so that the transition can't be easily seen.

[Kaye]

Hi Mick,
Thought I would have a quick go at this. It may have more blur than you would like, but this you can adjust when you edit.



In Photoshop (I have CS2):
1. Used Magnetic Lasoo Tool to outline the body and the pool.
2. When outline is joined, it will flash. Then press Control CV.
3. You will see a new layer comes up on the right side of your screen.
4. Click on Background layer so it is highlighted.
5. Go to "Filter" at top of PS screen. Then in dropdown menu, choose blur... then Gaussian blur. It is here you can alter the amount of blur. On background layer also I desaturated it.

It took me 15 minutes to do this edit, so it is a little rough. Sorry about the few minor body malformations! With a little more time, this can be done perfectly.

[StephenK]

Hi Mick :^)

Don't forget you can check through the creative filters in photoshop and mask the background in something that
dampens the details. This one uses the Colored Pencil filter (Filter>Artistic>Colored Pencil) You can play with
those until you find something you like! :^)

[Pat]

I took a different approach. Masking out the boy is just too daunting a process at this time of the morn and with this pitiable amount of coffee in me. So what I did was...

• Duplicate the image (never work on an original).
• Duplicate the background layer (always save a copy of the background layer for those cases of unsalvagable muddle).
• Duped the bkgd layer again and applied the Orton Effect.
• Erased the blurred layer from the boy and pool foreground.
• Erased blurred layer from the girl.
• Adjusted brightness and saturation.
• Applied blur tool to printing on box.
• Cloned out whitish object in upper right corner.

[midimick]

Ta all,

Have a few days off next week, so might sit down and have a play. You've given me a couple of ideas,for sure. I'll let you know how it goes.

Mick