[ray]

I dont know what this flower is called, but this is my rather pathetic attempt at cloning out the background
The Original

And my try at photoshop

[Larne]

It's pretty good for a first attempt Ray (I am still really bad at this). Only main observation at this point is that you really need to make the background much darker to lift the flower 'off the background'. At the moment the tone level is too similar so although the background is less cluttered the flower is still not clearly separated from it.

Really good effort though, I look forward to the next one.

[ray]

Thank you

[chrisa]

It would look better if you were to select the flower (use magic wand) and cut it out. Then paste onto a background of your choosing, for what you've done here is make it look smudgy. Agree with Larne that it would "pop" out more on a darker background. I'm no PS expert myself either by the way!

Rob Barron has two tutorials on backgrounds. Here and here

[marcinklysewicz]

looks little bit artificial now - but if it's your first photoshop work then i have to say good job . you just have to practice now .

[AQ]

Not a bad first attempt but as noted above I would look atthe tutorials. The plant is a garden version of the Monkshood - Aconitum napellus.

The wild plant is reputed to be Britain's most toxic plant. The risk is small as the plant is comparatively rare, I have not found one in the wild. All parts of the plant are poisonous and the toxins can be absorbed through the skin.

It grows all over our garden and we have had absoultely no problems with it so I guess it is not as bad as the wild one appears to be.

[fuzzymisfit]

not bad as a 1st go at all, i know ppl that have used photoshop for years that still cannot use the cloan tool....

U might want to look at using the heal tool when u cloan out too...its the one above the cloan that looks like a plaster ( does on CS2) Click and u have different types of heal...all u do is select heal, then run the curser over an area and it will pull pixels from the surrounding area and kind of blend them...dont doo too much at one time as it will pull a further radius and u might get patches u dont want ;D

personally i wouldn't have used cloan on that image, as the area u are cloaning from is pretty small, i would have used the path tool ( one that looks like a pen )
to place a clipping path around the image. ( pen to do the initial path, then the pen+ to add points and shape them, pen- remove points) , then once u have a path around the flower, go to the paths pallet ( menu bar\window\paths, turn on paths tab if its not on ) and shift click the path- i think on a pc, but i don't use one so cannot say for sure - ( apple click on a mac ), that will put a selection around the flower ( dotted line that seems to be flashing, as if u used the magic wand ), then cut the flower off the background and paste it into a new layer.., that way u wont make any alterations to the flower itself, as it will be on a different layer.., then u can either fill the background with a colour, or as u have done cloan the background to a desired one, or even past something else in there....the worlds your oyster..

sorry if thats a bit long winded, or sounds patronizing, its not at all, just don't know your level of photoshopness & its easier to start with the basics and move onwards ( i use it 8 - 10 hours a day, 6 days a week , so its easy to assume everyone knows its ins and outs )

Adrian


didnt really have loads of time at lunch, but heres what i did:

- pathed out the flower using paths and pasted it into a new layer
- duplicated the original "background" image and set it to multiply & added some blur
- created a new layer and filled it 100% black and took it down to about 40% opacity with a 35% fill ( dont know if that options available below cs2 )
- looked at it, and decided there was still too much colour at the bottom corner, so i created a new layer and added a gradient fill, set to multiply
- tweeked the levels of the flower ( colours might b off to yours as my screens are calibrated to our rip and press )
-flatten and upload

[water]

To be honest Ray,I don't have a problem with the original.I'm not saying a version with a defocused/darker background would not be 'better', just that you already have here a nice shot.If being picky I would like to have seen the whole of the unopened flower head on the left.Nice one as is though.

[brian-iow]

Hi Ray....For a first attempt at PS I think you have made a creditable effort. I rather like the original photograph and like John (water) in the previous post I would look at selecting the background after masking the flower and then use a little desaturate and darken. Finally a touch of Gaussian Blur and your flower will pop out from the background.

[ray]

Thanks a lot for the answers im sure with a bit of reading with a book i got off Vinny (thanks) i will make steady progress hopefully

[WOODY]

VERY GOOD FIRST ATTEMPT RAY

[john crossley]

Ray
I did this the same way as I did the http://www.pixalo.com/community/phot...ant-22827.html for you, (Post No.6). Give it a go.



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[ray]

Hmm now thats very nice i will give it a go but im ot holding my breath