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'Perfect shot' - awful background, help needed

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MortenJensen

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Hi all

I took this nice shot of my 2 months old son. I like the captured moment. However... the background is awful.

Is there anyway I can do some really nice work on it? Any suggestions - I would be really grateful.

Thanks

Morten

 
Hi!

Thanks to both of you! I actually like both of them. The first one gives the impression of laying on a blanket while the second one is very much 'boyish' The extraction of the blue one seems a little bit more sharp. How did you do it? Just the magic wand or? And where did you get the background?.

I myself have done very little of stuff like this, but have been following this forum for the past 6 months and am just amazed over what is actually possible!!!

Thanks again

Morten
Michael_Romeo said:
Trying to work on my extractions, hope you like it...



--
Mike
Click to expand...
 
You can put this shot on nearly an background, as the previous posts reveal, but the original background is not that bad.
Here are a couple examples that just use croping to focus more on the baby.

Orig



Cropped close- Aspect ratio almost square



Cropped Closer-cropped for portrait mount


MortenJensen said:
Hi all
I took this nice shot of my 2 months old son. I like the captured
moment. However... the background is awful.
Is there anyway I can do some really nice work on it? Any
suggestions - I would be really grateful.

Thanks

Morten
Click to expand...
 
MortenJensen said:
The extraction of the blue one seems a little
bit more sharp. How did you do it? Just the magic wand or?
Click to expand...
I used a quick mask for the basic extraction, did the fine work with the brush tool on the mask layer and then finished the mask with a 2px gaussian blur. I'm using a tablet for this and find it helps a lot.
MortenJensen said:
And where did you get the background?.
Click to expand...
The background is just a layer of render clouds, canvas filter and smudge stick filter. I tried different levels of G. blur but didn't think it added anything.

The only other thing I did was add a high pass sharpening layer.

Mike
 


Used magnetic lasso to sellect child. Inversed selection, gusian blur on background + some desaturation. Inversed selection, level + saturation + unsharp mask. Sellect eyes, more unsharp mask.

Michael
 
Can't help but add my try:
Michael Rasmussen said:


Used magnetic lasso to sellect child. Inversed selection, gusian
blur on background + some desaturation. Inversed selection, level +
saturation + unsharp mask. Sellect eyes, more unsharp mask.

Michael
Click to expand...
 
Background looks like he is in someones lap having a good time, maybe tickled. A wonderful background I think. Wouldn't mess with it.
 
I didn'tread the other threads, but thought a simple crop would help. I also cloned a little along the seperation in the blue jean legs to make it a bit more uniform.

http://www.pbase.com/mike_platts/image/36831054
MortenJensen said:
Hi all
I took this nice shot of my 2 months old son. I like the captured
moment. However... the background is awful.
Is there anyway I can do some really nice work on it? Any
suggestions - I would be really grateful.

Thanks

Morten

Click to expand...
 
The first thing I noticed is how much your son looks like mine.

I'm not sure why the images aren't imbedding.

http://www.pbase.com/mike_platts/image/36831354
Mike Scott said:
http://www.pbase.com/mike_platts/image/36831054
MortenJensen said:
Hi all
I took this nice shot of my 2 months old son. I like the captured
moment. However... the background is awful.
Is there anyway I can do some really nice work on it? Any
suggestions - I would be really grateful.

Thanks

Morten

Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Glad to share with you how I did it.

I duplicated the background image then I grabbed the pen tool in PSCS and went around your childs body and head. Slightly in from the edge but following the same shape. Then when I went to make the selection and gave it a feather selection of 1 and selected the inverse and deleted the background.

I chose a white for the foreground colour and the light blue for the background colour. Create a new layer under the cutout layer of your child.

Using the gradient tool select the radius one and make sure you choose the white and light blue selection that you choose. (The foreground and backgound gradient) Then start in the middle, under the child head and drag on a 45 degree angle towards the top left corner. You will need to adjust the distance and such to your liking.

I then created a new layer above the blend and made a rectangle shape spanning the whole page and filled it with a slightly darker light blue then the one used for the background and made the stripes that way.

Also used a layer mask and foreground to transparency to blend them from the middle to the left edge so they disappear under your childs head.

That was it. If you have any more questions please feel free to email me.

Hope that helps and it wasn't too confusing.
Thanks,

vander

--
http://www.edgeflowmedia.com/gallery
 
Nice job you two i think the first couple of pictures it is obvious that the kid was super imposed onto another background but by darkening it so much u get the feel that it was a studio shot or something. Nice jobs.
wnor said:
Michael Rasmussen said:


Used magnetic lasso to sellect child. Inversed selection, gusian
blur on background + some desaturation. Inversed selection, level +
saturation + unsharp mask. Sellect eyes, more unsharp mask.

Michael
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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