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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> Can this photo be salvaged
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Showing posts 1 - 16 of 16, (reverse)
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 08/30/2005 01:21:09 AM · #1
An acquaintance really likes the expressions in this shot and cannot be dissuaded towards a more pleasing photo. Her request: crop out or do "something" with the buildings in the background.



Anybody have any suggestions for me?? I suspected I'd be having this problem...they insisted on the waterfall for pictures and I had problems with composition from the get go. I'm not at all happy with MOST of the shots near the falls. The lighting was "eh" and my flash was buggy that day.

Note, this is really a poor image quality jpeg for web proofing.
 08/30/2005 01:27:07 AM · #2

Can you maybe clone in a nice sky background or something similar to replace the buildings with?
 08/30/2005 01:30:00 AM · #3
I worry that those individual strands of grass on top of the rocks will cause a great deal of heartache in PhotoShop.

I just may end up cloning in something...more rock perhaps...I don't know.
 08/30/2005 01:32:04 AM · #4
Originally posted by marmalade1121:
I worry that those individual strands of grass on top of the rocks will cause a great deal of heartache in PhotoShop.

You don't really need the grass up there. Make the rocks the cut-off and replace it all with sky.
 08/30/2005 01:37:18 AM · #5
I guess I am just really frustrated with it right now. I think I need to close the Powerbook and just walk away for now. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around what I need to do to make this photo what I want/need it to be.



Is sky my only option you think?
 08/30/2005 01:40:51 AM · #6
no. you can always apply a gaussian blur... just not too much... just enought o blur it out... still keeping the rocks as a baseline point...
 08/30/2005 01:44:35 AM · #7
Originally posted by marmalade1121:

Is sky my only option you think?

What about trees? It would be easy enough to take a photo of trees that are at the right distance, angle of sun etc, then you could even try leaving the grass there, too.
Or if you go for the blur option, I'd also slightly darken the buildings, that always seems to help make things "disappear" somewhat.
 08/30/2005 07:13:31 AM · #8
I'm taking all these under consideration, thank you everyone--I think I'll try darkening the buildings again. I was using one of the lighting/spotlight effects and lowering opacity in that layer and wasn't having much luck with it...maybe I need to find a different methodology of darkening those buildings.
 08/30/2005 08:04:30 AM · #9
I used some of the grass to make a new background then blurred and brightened it


looking at this now I should have scaled the grass down about 30% so it would look further in the background

Message edited by author 2005-08-30 08:07:44.
 08/30/2005 09:41:06 AM · #10
Firsty, that looks pretty good but not quite what I envisioned (yet). You've given me something to work with though...an idea I really didn't think too much about prior to seeing this.
 08/30/2005 10:53:45 AM · #11
A quick attempt, hope you didn't mind.
08/30/2005 04:56:42 PM · #12
Well I decided to embrace the background instead of creating something that isn't there. I am still open to suggestions, am far from getting it printed at this point but I just wanted some feedback.

08/30/2005 05:26:27 PM · #13


here is my take, took out the background, added sky from a different pic, adjusted saturations and such. Not quite right around his head but was a rough take. colors probably too much also.

Message edited by author 2005-08-30 17:27:10.
 09/04/2005 12:11:41 AM · #14
Yes, the luminosity off of his head was harsh for doing ANY sort of treatment. Thus I decided to concentrate on embracing that back drop (and subduing it a bit more).

She decided, YES, definitely she will go with this picture so I may do some blurring of that backdrop (buildings) and perhaps darken it a tad so it drops out of the line of focus.

Thanks everyone for all your input.
 09/04/2005 12:30:30 AM · #15
I suggest you go in before all of the editing you are about to do and make ajustments in Shadow/Highlight to bring out the eyes a little better. The dark shadowed eyes are more distracting to me then the buildings.
 09/04/2005 12:31:42 AM · #16
Here's a shot at it remaining faithful to the original. Selection is iffy because of lo-res master copy, but the principle obtains. The BG above the rocks was selected with magnetic lasso, bluured, and a neutral-to-transparent overlay was added and faded for a little value stretch. Also used selective color on the image as a whole (neutral & white channels) to get a more pleasing color tone, at least IMO.



Robt.
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