Need honest opinion (1 pic)

I wanted to have my kids' photos done at a size larger than my usual 4x6" . So I tried to play around with my H5 and pp using CS2. After reaching this stage and before printing I got the feeling that the photo looks heavily pp and thus bad. More like a cut and paste job I guess. is that so ? If it's so obvious please let me know and I'll start all over again.After all I don't expect miracles from my first attempts. Also if you have any suggestions please feel free to add them



--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

I am just a regular guy, not a pro, but it does look like she was pasted into the picture on this one. The background just seems too far out of focus to be realistic with her strikingly defined focus. Just my opinion, I could be wrong altogether.

C

No you're right.But I'm confused about making the background less blury. Or is the whole technique of changing the background, too complicated to use here !!
--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

Simple. Raise the f-stop.

Jim

nelraheb said:

No you're right.But I'm confused about making the background less
blury. Or is the whole technique of changing the background, too
complicated to use here !!

Click to expand...

Nagy,

i second Chad..., imho the difference between the background is to big maybe if the tonal balance was more equal it would have worked.

for now it does look like a copy and paste trick not applied well.

just my honest opinion for its what its worth.

cheers Marti
--

• living in harmony with nature and other people ...will create an better world for all * marti58 -2006

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Raising the f stop will not work here. It's not the original background to begin with
--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

With the background that I wanted to remove. If I can't do it then I'll have to go shoot somewhere else Till now I used to think that backgrounds could be easily changed. Not any more.
BTW what do you do to extract a pic with astray hair ?



--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

That not a bad background, it's not an interesting one but it is blurry so it doesn't distract too much.
I like it, it's better then the one you PPed.

Boros

--
Feel free to comment, there's still a lot to learn
H*duck club member

crop it tightly in a 8X10 portrait format, and you have a very nice portrait.
--
-Jerry
Sony V1 and H5 - Still learning...

'The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.'
-- Dorothea Lange

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What happens when you get rid of all the waisted space?



My big question is why did you shot landscape instead of portrait?

You threw away over half of your sensor. That's like shooting medium format and cropping to a 35mm format. You paid good money for all those pixels, use them.

Every portrait photographer worth his money would get the background as far out of focus as he can. You could have done better in selecting the back ground area though.

You have a bit of road, a fence, a lamp post, part of a building none of which have any purpose in the portrait at all.

The purpose in throwing the background out of focus it to make it draw less attention to it. Look at location fashion photos you will rarely if ever see in focus background. You want the subject to pop so you do NOT notice the background.

The viewer should see her not the background. It is just too busy here.



Note in this photo that I did of Tammi about 20 years. You almost have to make a concious decision to look at the background inspite of my having used a diffuser she is still the sharpest object in the photo pulling your eye right toward her.

--
Marion
STF Gallery

http://www.pbase.com/kattslackey/stf_members

My photos? Steal 'em, abuse 'em, post 'em whatever from the STF website. My studio photos NO, no.

nelraheb said:

I wanted to have my kids' photos done at a size larger than my
usual 4x6" . So I tried to play around with my H5 and pp using CS2.
After reaching this stage and before printing I got the feeling
that the photo looks heavily pp and thus bad. More like a cut and
paste job I guess. is that so ? If it's so obvious please let me
know and I'll start all over again.After all I don't expect
miracles from my first attempts. Also if you have any suggestions
please feel free to add them



--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

Click to expand...

Best regards,

Piotr

OTD said:

What happens when you get rid of all the waisted space?

Click to expand...

Good idea I will try that on the original

OTD said:

My big question is why did you shot landscape instead of portrait?

Click to expand...

New to portrait Bad photographer

OTD said:

Every portrait photographer worth his money would get the
background as far out of focus as he can.

Click to expand...

I tried ..Wide + zoom what else could be done ??

OTD said:

You could have done
better in selecting the back ground area though.

Click to expand...

Sure and that's the main problem

OTD said:

The purpose in throwing the background out of focus it to make it
draw less attention to it. Look at location fashion photos you
will rarely if ever see in focus background. You want the subject
to pop so you do NOT notice the background.

The viewer should see her not the background. It is just too busy
here.



Note in this photo that I did of Tammi about 20 years. You almost
have to make a concious decision to look at the background inspite
of my having used a diffuser she is still the sharpest object in
the photo pulling your eye right toward her.

Click to expand...

Well that's why I learn from you not the opposite

OTD said:

--
Marion
STF Gallery

Click to expand...

Thank you Marion
--
Nagy
Feel free to critique, pp my pics, post ideas,..etc.
I'm here to learn

--
Brighteyes

Study the work of Yuri Pautov. You can use any background you like. You got the out of focus right, now all you need is a darker background. Pick on that goes well with her complextion and hair. You are on the right track by using two images and PhotoShoping them. In short you have done well. Oh; Like OTD said, get close on the subject as you will be adding the background later.

Keep shooting her. They grow up so fast.

Hard to work with a small posted image but this gives the idea.

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

There's not enough "frizzies" in the hair, which is what makes it look like a cut and paste. You've picked the hardest thing in PP to do: isolate hair from a background. I have tons of tools just for that and still don't usually have success, so don't be disappointed in your skills.

Instead of blurring the background, I'd just crop it in portrait mode. Just my take and I wish I had a better solution for you.

The best solution is to get closer to your subject and shoot closer to wide-open and get the bokeh naturally, not after-the-fact. And, I should mention that It's devilishly hard to drop a background in behind a girl- with hair!

Here's my quick-and-dirty take on the original:



--
=~ AAK - http://www.aakatz.com
=~ Author of The White Paper
=~ http://www.aakatz.com/whitepaper

"BTW what do you do to extract a pic with astray hair ? "

Oh, remove them! Stray hairs are distracting.

AAK just curious, how did you achieve such a beautiful blurred-bokeh background, yet you preserved every fine strand of hair and kept her detail so sharp?

Do tell, I would like to learn this technique.
--
Rudy

eaglesprey said:

AAK just curious, how did you achieve such a beautiful
blurred-bokeh background, yet you preserved every fine strand of
hair and kept her detail so sharp?

Do tell, I would like to learn this technique.

Click to expand...

There are a lot of us out here that would love to know.

Dale
--
Happiness is a Barbershop Quartet

That diagonal bothers me.

--
Busch

Take the scenic route! Life is too short to do otherwise.

http://www.pbase.com/busch

You need to shoot aperature prefered and wide open. Focus on the close eye as the depth of field should be very shallow.

Note in the photo below how shallow the DOF is. The focus is on the near eye and the near shoulder and far eye are already going OOF.



This makes the portrait very compelling as it draws the viewer directly to the near eye as you would in real life.

The best way to achive this is at full tele - 72mm and wide open. With the H~series cameras you perhaps will not get this shallow a depth but not too far from it and the background will be blown completely OOF.

Never shoot in full sun light untill late in the day or very early in the morning.



This photo was taken about an hour before sunset with the sun almost directly behind me. Not how there are no deep shadows on her and just enough under the chin and nose to give depth to the photo. Also as you can see the light at that time of the day is very warm and flattering to women.

--
Marion
STF Gallery

http://www.pbase.com/kattslackey/stf_members

My photos? Steal 'em, abuse 'em, post 'em whatever from the STF website. My studio photos NO, no.