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I really love this shot, but the background is blown!

How can i crop and Photoshop this to make it perfect for printing?

You're right - a GREAT image. I'm not a PS expert but I don't think the blown background hugely distracts from the image. I'm sure others will have a better idea on how best to 'deal' with this.

A lovely portrait, great natural subjects with a happy natural smile, great image...

For PP, I'm just rambling now...

I'd be tempted to select the background and blur a bit to take detail away (especially the street sign in the background) but I wouldn't apply the blur to the leaves entering the frame in the top right corner as they're the same distance from the camera as your subject so they might look "faked" if they were blurred, plus they frame your subject nicely..

While the background's still selected you could lower the white point using the end point of a curve to make the white more "gray" maybe? Possibly darken the overall background a smidge to make it hit the viewer less...

Hmmm, maybe a vignette too, to force the viewer's eye to stay on your subject?

Just tossing some stuff around

Good advice Andrew!

This is a LOVELY shot and is well and truly worthy of framing (well, for the people involved, anyway!! otherwise that's just creepy.... ).

I do not know how to do it myself, but would you consider getting rid of that background altogether? Either reshoot a "nicer" outdoor background somewhere else, or dummy up a plain one in PS? (ie that looks like a backdrop, maybe)

Would these options look too fake??

Well shot, anyway.... cheers.

Ha! I've never taken a photo of a human EVER, this is what I do for some of my animal stuff, but hey, a portrait's a portrait right?

cyanide wrote:... consider getting rid of that background altogether? Either reshoot a "nicer" outdoor background somewhere else, or dummy up a plain one in PS? (ie that looks like a backdrop, maybe)...

Good idea, if you use a background that's a mottled green and other pale color, you could make the join between the subjects little details like the hair blend in well with a replaced background...

I was going to suggest replacing the background too.

Getting around the guys hair could be tricky but with a bit of time it would work. (I just did it very quickly in PSCS2 and the hair was the only bit that didn't turn out well)



You'd obviously choose a better background

Paul

You could go a couple of ways here...

You could either using the color replace, zoom in and replace the color in the daggy bits around the edges with the same color as the background.

Or you could use a different background, one with a mottled type of appearance with a couple (or more!) colors in it, so the daggy edge bits will blend in more... Just something blurry and bugger all detail to take attention away from your subject...

The hair's usually the tricky bit, dunno but this might help, worth a try... When working with selections, you could go into the channels palette and select one of the color channels just for making your selections. Some color channels give greater contrast than others, depending on the scene, use them to make your selection, then just go back into RGB when making the change... Worth a try...

mudder wrote:
The hair's usually the tricky bit, dunno but this might help, worth a try... When working with selections, you could go into the channels palette and select one of the color channels just for making your selections. Some color channels give greater contrast than others, depending on the scene, use them to make your selection, then just go back into RGB when making the change... Worth a try...

That's what I did

That is an excellent background...but a bit bright. Try this....using the polygonal lassoo click a rough line about 1 cm outside the people. Close the loop then go to SELECT/FEATHER and set a feather of around 150. Go back to SELECT/INVERT and invert the selection. Go to levels and darken the background, but don't overdo it.

Or maybe a more natural backdrop?

Regards

Tony

Nice work!

The background is not too bad, but maybe I would consider selecting it and simply making it darker. I think you can quite easily go overboard with PPing the background, when all that is required is a simple darkening.. IMO

Kris,

Two points.

1: I would have preferred to see this shot in portrait orientation. Guess why it's called "portrait"?

But had you done that, your question probably wouldn't have been asked.


2: That said, I don't see a problem with background. Yes, it's blown, but so what? The people are the subject, and they're perfectly exposed. The blown background only helps to focus attention on the people, and in that respect it's only down the scale a little from, say, a high key image.

Don't sweat it.

3: If you really feel a need to do something, crop it into a portrait orientation; I suspect that it'll look better.

Go with Gary give it the chop

This was a quickie on the orig, tricky with low res stuff, but all I did was:

select the background but not the leaves in the TR cnr
using a curve darken and reduce the white level down
Slightly blur the background
A smidge of levels just on the subjects
a vignette
Oh, and I cheated and whitened her teeth (too much)...

You could do a lot more if you spend time on the high res version... This is a bit rough of course but you get the idea... This is just one quick way using the original background...

Maybe a crop???

Kris, pls let me know and I'll take the image down...

Orig:


Quickie modified:

Nice work Andrew, I agree the teeth might be a little over done.

hello Andrew, i think the darken is a little to ex7reme. try feathering your selection a bit further

Alpha_7 wrote:...the teeth might be a little over done.

Yeah, I couldn't help it when I zoomed in a bit... I should have used replace color with his...

redline wrote:...i think the darken is a little to ex7reme. try feathering your selection a bit further

You're right, t'was a quickie and I didn't bother to blur the mask before posting...

woah alot of replies. I think i'll do the crop, some sharpening and call it quits

Ill definately remove that sign from the picture!

Thanks guys! I'm really happy with the shot i just wish all of them would come out like this!

how about this?



Just a quickie...didn't spend too much time on it, otherwise would have tried to go for selective colouring.

very quick and dirty go at this (which is why it looks like a fake background), but i'm a little short on time tonight.... if you spend some time on it you could eliminate the highlights and clone out the sign etc



cheers

Was it a RAW or JPG? If it was a RAW, you could do several developments, one for the background which should reduce a good portion of the blowout and then do another for the peoples and merge them.
Nice portrait by the way!