[skipper954]

Apparently an old famous busker on Grafton Street. I don't think that he was cool with my snapping a candid (without a Euro).

This was a snapshot with people walking in the background, and I hope that I made it better.

My only concern is that in PSing, I am not happy with the interface between the musicians and the blurrred background.

I think I will present the original in PIMP to see what you all can do.

A learning experience.

[fionaB]

i love this shot....... it captures the moment so well!

[Rob Barron]

I like the picture, has definitely got character. i agree with you about the blurring, especially around the man on the left where it doesn't quite work properly. One dead giveaway is the bit of the pavement between the seated guy's legs... totally sharp, when bits at the same distance either side are blurred.

But that aside it's a good one Skip, who cares if Santa on his day off didn't like it, he's out in the street so he is fair game for the camera as far as I'm concerned :o)

Nice one,
Rob ;o)

[skipper954]

You got my problems exactly, Rob. I noted the pavement in the forground after I posted, and it was the man on the left that I didn't like the transition.

So.......how do you blur the background??????

And thanks!

skip

[Rob Barron]

Originally Posted by skipper954

You got my problems exactly, Rob. I noted the pavement in the forground after I posted, and it was the man on the left that I didn't like the transition.

So.......how do you blur the background??????

And thanks!

skip

If I blue the background, I make a selection, then add a layer mask and paint onto the mask with a graduated fill. Then I apply a GBlur to the selection so that it blurs progressively, exactly as it does when you do it with the lens normally. If you need further help with that, I can do it in more detail using screen shots and stuff but I am just off to bed now. Let me know and I'll see what I can do Skip.

Cheers,
Rob

[skipper954]

Interesting. I made a new layer, blurred it, then painted on the layer mask, in this case, the musicians. I increased the opacity of the blur as I want farther from the forground. I tried to be very careful, but I didn't like the blur about the guy on the left, particularly his cap.

I did it this way because my selections never seem to work out well. I know that they vary with the subject. I have particular problems with hair! Any selection suggestions?

skip

[stepheno]

Rob took the words out of my mouth - a layer mask.

[skipper954]

OK, Rob and Stephano.

One of the cool things about ps is that there are many ways to reach the same endpoint.

I did sort of the same thing as Rob, but made my selection in the layermask and didn't graduate the blur.

So, I have a few questions:

First, in this image, what method would you use to do the selection?

Since blurring the background is such a useful thing, how do you do a graduated fill in the layer mask?

Finally, what method does everyone use to select HAIR? That is the bane of my existance.

Thank you, everyone for your help. This should probably not be in this forum, but what the heck

skip

[Rob Barron]

The best way to do hair is to use the extract filter and put the subject onto a new layer so you can then blur the background behind the subject. Press Ctrl+alt+X to access this tool. When you have areas of hair, highlight it all and let the extracter do the rest.

One tip for you: before doing this, copy onto a new layer, then increase the contrast strongly to get the hair as clearly defined from the background as possible. When you have extracted the face and hair, you can put the picture back to correct view. This will help the extraction tool do a better job.

There are standalong programs that do an amazing job of extracting fine detail, some can even extract smoke, but these are pretty expensive and only worth it if you have a lot of use for it. Most of us don't.

When selecting areas that don't need such fine detail, people often forget about the quick mask tool. Just press Q and then use the paintbrush to paint on a rubicon over the part you want to select. This allows you to paint and erase as you wish until you have got the whole thing selected. Now just hit Q again and you'll get the familiar marching ants. Remember that what you painted was what you want to keep so the selection will be the reverse of what you want. Just hit Ctrl+Shift+I to invert the selection and you'll have what you want :o)

Quick Mask is a very useful way of checking if you have got a whole area selected when you've been using the magic wand. Just hit Q and you can see if you have any red spots on the area you want to select. If so, just use the eraser to rub them out and hit Q again and you're back to your selection.

For quality selections, I tend to use the pen tool (not for things like hair though) as this is a quick way to select straight and curved edges extremely accurately. If you have tried this and found it difficult, please persevere as it will become easy after a while. It can be a bit fiddly at first but the effort is well worth it.

I hope the above offers some ideas for help Skip. I am going to do a layer mask graduated blur and show it to you using screenshots as I think it would explain what I mean a bit more than i can do with words alone. Give me a little while though.

Cheers,
Rob :o)

[skipper954]

Cool Rob

Thanks

[Rob Barron]

Hi again Skip,

Ok, to try and show you what I meant, I have applied a graduated blur to a picture of mine, I stress I have deliberately over-exaggerated the blur here to show what I mean.

Ok, starting picture is like this:


First I made a selection of the bail I wanted to keep in focus with a strip of the foreground. I placed this on a new layer. Please note, the layer was transparent, not white. It only looks like this because of saving as a jog to show you.



Ok, now on a duplicate layer of the starting image, I added a layer mask, set the 'fill' tool to 'graduated fill', the colours to default (ie black and white) by simply pressing D (stands for Default colours) and starting from the bottom of the picture in the middle, draw a line straight up the picture. MAKE SURE you have clicked on the layer mask icon on the layer first or you will fill your screen with a graduated black and white!

By painting on the layer mask this graduated black and white, this will now allow a lot at the top (black) to show through but none at the bottom (white) to show through, with a graduation of what you can see in between.

Now, click on the picture icon on the same layer so you are now working on the picture itself and add a Gaussian Blur as strong as you want it in the BG of the picture. It will look too strong at the front but don't worry because the layer mask deals with that.

You get a layer looking like this (shown here with other layers turned off so you can see the effect):



Back on the layer mask, paint black over the sky on the picture so that you reveal the original sky: you don't want this to be all blurred! Now, what you are left with when all layers are turned on, including the sharp original corn bail, is the foreground and bail nice and sharp, then a gradually fading field to blur at the back and the sky looking fine. A screenshot showing the picture and the layers pallet and mask etc is thus:



I do hope that helps to see what I mean.

Cheers,
Rob :o)