First time with Elements

J40ADF

J40ADF

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Name
Andy
Edit My Images
Yes
Here goes, thought I'd try a bit of processing.
Firstly, I love this picture. Not only for the raw composition out of my old bridge camera but also personally. It's my youngest and my niece waiting in a queue at Chessington several years ago how cute are they? Maybe I should call the picture 'Expectant'

So I thought I would try and give it something extra and plot my progress in this thread (so please don't edit it for me as I want to learn how to do it myself)

The image below is the unedited version.

View attachment 43683

The first thing I thought about the picture was the background, I could have done with a shallower depth of field (something I always struggled with on my bridge camera)
So with a little help from Youtube I've blurred the background.
Question is, have I blurred it enough?

The pic below is the first edit;

View attachment 43684
 
Last edited:
So...More or less blur or have I got it about right?
 
The background blur looks plausible. That said there is some weirdness going on with your masking around the little one's hand and some of the fenceposts. It also encroaches onto the hair.
You could carefully soften the foreground to match so the DoF is consistent on both sides of the focal plane.

That said, the degree of blur isn't the main issue to me; my eye is drawn to the two high contrast regions at either edge of the frame - the grey shirt behind the armpit on the left and the hand on the right. If they bother you too then you could crop in until there was only a little of those areas left and clone the remainder out - and not worry about blurring & masking.
 
juggler said:
The background blur looks plausible. That said there is some weirdness going on with your masking around the little one's hand and some of the fenceposts. It also encroaches onto the hair.
You could carefully soften the foreground to match so the DoF is consistent on both sides of the focal plane.

That said, the degree of blur isn't the main issue to me; my eye is drawn to the two high contrast regions at either edge of the frame - the grey shirt behind the armpit on the left and the hand on the right. If they bother you too then you could crop in until there was only a little of those areas left and clone the remainder out - and not worry about blurring & masking.
Click to expand...

Cheers Simon, looking closer I can see what you mean, I think. You can see the edge of the area I have selected? I used the magic wand tool to make my selection and just accepted all the defaults. It was really difficult to guide the tool in some areas (for a first timer).

Interesting comment about what your eye was drawn to.
I was going to have another play around with this image anyway and had considered a crop amongst other things.
I will give it a go without blurring the background but I don't want to loose much of the foreground.
 
Did you make your changes on a separate layer? Toggling the layer on and off should make it obvious where you've gone over the edges. fwiw this kind of selection and masking - especially with hair against a similarly-toned complex background - is exceedingly difficult to do well and almost never worth the effort. Well, for me, anyway. I do sometimes do something similar to clean up the backdrop of studio work but that's significantly easier.

Now I look again it's also obvious above the top right of the blond child's head; the blond has leaked into the blurred region.

The eye is always drawn to high contrast regions in any image, especially if they're at the edge of the frame; it's a fairly well known compositional principle.
 
juggler said:
Did you make your changes on a separate layer? Toggling the layer on and off should make it obvious where you've gone over the edges. fwiw this kind of selection and masking - especially with hair against a similarly-toned complex background - is exceedingly difficult to do well and almost never worth the effort. Well, for me, anyway. I do sometimes do something similar to clean up the backdrop of studio work but that's significantly easier.

Now I look again it's also obvious above the top right of the blond child's head; the blond has leaked into the blurred region.

The eye is always drawn to high contrast regions in any image, especially if they're at the edge of the frame; it's a fairly well known compositional principle.
Click to expand...

Yeah but I couldn't work out how to toggle the layers on and off, although I only tried when I'd finished making the selection and didn't try very hard. It was difficult, really difficult in some areas, especially where the background is similar in tone to the foreground. The gap in the fence just under the hand was really hard too and looking again has not turned out that well.

I know what you mean, where the hair is whispy? It was a dilemma to select or not to select.
I get where you are coming from with regards to not bothering.

Anyway, I gave it a go. I was quite pleased when I'd finished but you have now made me take a more critical look. At least it was good practice eh!
That's the point of posting though.

Let me try a crop because at the very least the hand on the right needs to go!
 
It's not a bad exercise for learning to use layers and masks. Instead of altering the selection, alter the mask.
Then there are the quickmask, refine edge and refine mask tools - I think they're in Elements.

Photoshop ninjas would suggest the pen tool but that takes even more practice to get fluid with it.
 
OK, so I've learnt how to make a selection and blur the background of pictures. I've had a go with the clone stamp tool and have done a simple crop.
so now I have a better composition what else would you do to enhance the picture?

I haven't posted it yet but I've saturated the reds in it a bit more and I've also done a black and white version.
 
I wouldn't boost the reds, they're already pretty strong. The image really doesn't need much other than a slight crop. The skin is a little bit underexposed and you might have some latitude for fixing that, and I think you've focused on the fence rather than the eyes so there might some mileage in doing a little selective sharpening.
 
juggler said:
I wouldn't boost the reds, they're already pretty strong. The image really doesn't need much other than a slight crop. The skin is a little bit underexposed and you might have some latitude for fixing that, and I think you've focused on the fence rather than the eyes so there might some mileage in doing a little selective sharpening.
Click to expand...

Hmm, ok. I agree about the reds but it looks awesome with them saturated a bit more. I will post it later for comment.
Focussed on the fence...lol. This was taken a while ago now. Both the children are 12 now. It was taken on my old bridge camera and knowing me, because it was a family day out everything would have been set to automatic so SWIMBO could just point and shoot, which is exactly what I would have done.
But, hey, it's another bit of practice with elements to see if I can work out (with the help of google) if I can selectively sharpen.
 
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