The S5 has landed...

Gilu

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Well, ehh, not exactly, but I got your attention...

Thought to share this landing gull. S3 jpg, the original's background was kinda unspectacular, so I applied some gaussian blur to it. Does it work? Critiques welcome!

Cheers

gilbert

 
Well, ehh, not exactly, but I got your attention...

Thought to share this landing gull. S3 jpg, the original's
background was kinda unspectacular, so I applied some gaussian blur
to it. Does it work?
Nope. Looks like painting or glorifying the poor bird. You need to carefully select the bird (manually, takes time but best results) with the lasso tool, with tight vertices. Then "select inverse", and copy the background to a new document. Apply the gaussian blur there (the background of this doucument should be empty, at least do not flatten the image before applying the gaussian blur since the point is that there is a hole in the background, for the bird, that is. Then copy this blurred background and paste it "back" into the original document. This way you do not get disturbance of the birds white color, the only negative side efect of the blurring will be that it gets slightly sharper the closer the bird you get. That can also fixed but you might now know how to do it, wouldn´t you...

--
Osku
 
Well, ehh, not exactly, but I got your attention...
I'd prefer people don't do that. Just put a correct title on the post.
Thought to share this landing gull. S3 jpg, the original's
background was kinda unspectacular, so I applied some gaussian blur
to it. Does it work? Critiques welcome!
It has the look of neing significantly manipulated, so for me it doesn't work. I like nature photography to look like... nature. -Greg-

--
Greg
http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?include=all&user_id=301372
http://www.pbase.com/coraltown/root
 
Hi Osku,

Thanx a lot for that very useful comment! I'll try that out!

Hyvää illan jatkoa!
Kuin myös! Eli jos haluat että reunaan asti toimii se gaussian blurri niin sille kakkos dokulle johon pastetat sen taustan voit cloonaustyökalulla kopsata sitä taustaa siten, että aukkoa menee ympeen n. 50% gaussian-asetuksen halkaisijasta tai enemmän. Sitten vaan pitää siirtää blurrattu tausta takaisin alkuperäisiin tiedostoon siten, että siihen edelleen valittuna olevaan tausta-alueeseen pastetat Ctrl+Shift+V:llä niin se osa joka on mennyt linnun aukon päälle ei haittaa. Vaivalloista mutta tuolla saa minkä tahansa taustan blurrattua siten ettei sitä pysty näkemään että sitä on lainkaan blurrattu. Alunperin rajatessa kannattaa tökkiä niitä rajauspisteitä mielummin pikselin verran sinne taustan puolelle, jotta rajaa ei tule näkyviin. Feather pitää olla nolla, antialiasing toki päällä. Että näin, paljon nopeampaa kirjoittaa kotokielellä ja ei tule aivan kaikkien tietoon aivan kaikki jipot;-)

Yöitä,

--
Osku
 
että ensimmäisenä tosta tuli mieleen Siljan mainokset... jos taustaa piisaisi enempikin niin voisit oikeasti yrittää kaupata tuota niille, saisit tuurilla yhden kameran verran kapitaa vaivoistasi. Vaan taitaa siellä Tallinnassakin olla lokkeja ja halvemmat kuvaajat;-)
Hi Osku,

Thanx a lot for that very useful comment! I'll try that out!

Hyvää illan jatkoa!

Cheers

Gilbert
--
Osku
 
The only thing you get with st#pid subject lines like that are getting people angry... it's not funny at all to play with other people's time.

I don't know how you assume someone will be willing to spend time on critizicing or analyzing your work when you use a lie as a bait... very unwise on your part...

Better luck next time...
 
This would have more impact on me if you had left this gull in its natural setting...even if it's not as appealing...the blur isn't working for me here, but it's a wonderful capture without question!
--
Lisa H-S
'MWAC' in NoVA, USA
Fuji S3
Nikkor 50mm 1.8D
Tokina 12-24
Sigma 70-300 APO Super Macro II
YES! I am HAPPY with the S3 =)
 
The only thing you get with st#pid subject lines like that are
getting people angry... it's not funny at all to play with other
people's time.
This forum used to be more relaxed. But you wouldn't know, would you?(see your posting history).
I don't know how you assume someone will be willing to spend time
on critizicing or analyzing your work when you use a lie as a
bait... very unwise on your part...
Actually some did, and one very friendly person (aka not like you) took his time to actually exactly describe how to do it better. That's how this forum used to be: friendly, helpful and with a good sense of humour. I haven't been around for awhile, things seems to have changed.

But I do apologize!
 
Thank you herbert. I also sincerely apologize to you, for having you, and all others others, mislead. To be honest, with no S5 coming up I would not have made this post. I wondered how people would react. I was still interested in the critique for sure. And Osku took his time to explain how to do it better, and I actually learned from that, thanks to him!

As mentioned in another reply, this forum used to be more relaxed.
But the times seem to be so exciting that no one would take a joke on that

Again, my most sincerest apologies.
 
Well, ehh, not exactly, but I got your attention...
I'd prefer people don't do that. Just put a correct title on the post.
As with the others, I sincerely apologize for having abused your precious internet time. It won't happen again...
Thought to share this landing gull. S3 jpg, the original's
background was kinda unspectacular, so I applied some gaussian blur
to it. Does it work? Critiques welcome!
It has the look of neing significantly manipulated, so for me it
doesn't work. I like nature photography to look like... nature.
-Greg-
Thanks. That was the comment I expected most, and you are kinda right.

I usually prefer "natural" (like here http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1020&message=18483331 ), but sometimes one wants to play. Osku was so kind to tell me how to do it right.

Cheers, and sorry once more.
 
terve!

Kiitoksia! Kukaan ei ennen täällä antanut niin tarkka kuvaparannusehdotuksia, arvostan sitä kyllä! En ole vielä kokeillut, mutta takuulla kokeilen. Niin kuin huomasit, sen tyyliset manipulaatiot ovat minulle aika uusi..

Tais otsikko mennä penkin alla. Ajattelin että se on riski, mutta oli jotenkin pakko. Uuden kameran spekulointi on tietysti kiva, mutta tuntuu sillä että menee välillä ööveriksi. Kaikilla ei ole kuitenkaan samaa huumorintajua...

Kiitoksia vielä kerran!

Cheers

Silu
Hi Osku,

Thanx a lot for that very useful comment! I'll try that out!

Hyvää illan jatkoa!
Kuin myös! Eli jos haluat että reunaan asti toimii se gaussian
blurri niin sille kakkos dokulle johon pastetat sen taustan voit
cloonaustyökalulla kopsata sitä taustaa siten, että aukkoa menee
ympeen n. 50% gaussian-asetuksen halkaisijasta tai enemmän. Sitten
vaan pitää siirtää blurrattu tausta takaisin alkuperäisiin
tiedostoon siten, että siihen edelleen valittuna olevaan
tausta-alueeseen pastetat Ctrl+Shift+V:llä niin se osa joka on
mennyt linnun aukon päälle ei haittaa. Vaivalloista mutta tuolla
saa minkä tahansa taustan blurrattua siten ettei sitä pysty
näkemään että sitä on lainkaan blurrattu. Alunperin rajatessa
kannattaa tökkiä niitä rajauspisteitä mielummin pikselin verran
sinne taustan puolelle, jotta rajaa ei tule näkyviin. Feather pitää
olla nolla, antialiasing toki päällä. Että näin, paljon nopeampaa
kirjoittaa kotokielellä ja ei tule aivan kaikkien tietoon aivan
kaikki jipot;-)

Yöitä,

--
Osku
 
Thanks Lisa, I appreciate your opinion!

Cheers

Gilbert
This would have more impact on me if you had left this gull in its
natural setting...even if it's not as appealing...the blur isn't
working for me here, but it's a wonderful capture without question!
--
Lisa H-S
'MWAC' in NoVA, USA
Fuji S3
Nikkor 50mm 1.8D
Tokina 12-24
Sigma 70-300 APO Super Macro II
YES! I am HAPPY with the S3 =)
 
Looks like the cover art for the book "Johnathan Livingston Seagull"! :-)

There's nothing wrong with doctoring a photo for esthetics. I do it all the time.

But you ended up with a perfectly unbelievable glow around the bird that looks like a religious icon, not an esthetic bird shot.

To avoid the halo, I've got a really easy method of dropping in backgrounds.

In photoshop:

1) open a copy of the bird picture.

2) drop a copy of the new sky as a new layer on top of the bird layer. If you're going to blur an existing version of the bird's sky, you must first use the clone tool to bring the sky into a good chunk of the edge of the bird, so that when blurred, the bird doesn't bleed in - it's all just sky. ( I think that was your major "error", if you don't mind my calling it that).
3) Change transparency so you can see through the top layer to the bird.

4) Using the eraser tool, erase out the bird from the top layer. The eraser tool has great control over the hardness (shrarpness of edge) and opacity. Vary the opacity, size and sharpness until you can get a very precise erasure of the bird. It's not hard to do, I do it all the time.
5) Merge the two pictures.

If you erased subtly enough (opacity), no one will be able to tell that you dropped the bird onto a blurred sky.

That capture is just too good to mess with badly in post-processing.
--
=~ AAK - http://www.aakatz.com
=~ Author of the H-Series White Paper
=~ http://www.aakatz.com/h1whitepaper
 
Thank you very much for your honest comments and detailed technical lesson, I appreciate that a lot! I will definitely try out your suggestions.

Best regards

Gilbert
Looks like the cover art for the book "Johnathan Livingston
Seagull"! :-)

There's nothing wrong with doctoring a photo for esthetics. I do it
all the time.

But you ended up with a perfectly unbelievable glow around the bird
that looks like a religious icon, not an esthetic bird shot.

To avoid the halo, I've got a really easy method of dropping in
backgrounds.

In photoshop:

1) open a copy of the bird picture.
2) drop a copy of the new sky as a new layer on top of the bird
layer. If you're going to blur an existing version of the bird's
sky, you must first use the clone tool to bring the sky into a good
chunk of the edge of the bird, so that when blurred, the bird
doesn't bleed in - it's all just sky. ( I think that was your major
"error", if you don't mind my calling it that).
3) Change transparency so you can see through the top layer to the
bird.
4) Using the eraser tool, erase out the bird from the top layer.
The eraser tool has great control over the hardness (shrarpness of
edge) and opacity. Vary the opacity, size and sharpness until you
can get a very precise erasure of the bird. It's not hard to do, I
do it all the time.
5) Merge the two pictures.

If you erased subtly enough (opacity), no one will be able to tell
that you dropped the bird onto a blurred sky.

That capture is just too good to mess with badly in post-processing.

=~ AAK - http://www.aakatz.com
=~ Author of the H-Series White Paper
=~ http://www.aakatz.com/h1whitepaper
 
Hi cyclefreak6!

Thank you very much for your comments! here's the original for comparison (the bottom was cropped off a bit, it showed the grass, slightly oof, where the gull was landing, but I found it to be disturbing). The background is the sea. I did the background manipulation mainly because I thought this would be a good example of an image to try such a thing out, not because I wanted to improve the pic. I never did such manipulations before. I'm happy I got great comments on that. And I'm glad you liked it!

Cheers

Gilbert


I actually like your image, and it's a great capture! I think
everybody around here is just nerved up with all the hype about the
s4 or s5 or whatever. I'd also like to see the original, just for
comparison sake.
--
z7590: I have a lot to learn...
Fuji s2 Pro: I have EVERYTHING to learn...
http://s52.photobucket.com/albums/g17/cyclefreak6_photos/
 
thanks we'll all start using fake titles so people get sucked into seeing the pictures we so desperately want to show instead ...

Ever heard of the sample & galleries forum?
 

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