Help Please?

[moodye]

Hi guys

Still cutting my teeth with the GIMP, here's what i would class as a successful edit, my most successful to date;

i feel this worked because of the colour of the subject car, and the background was so distracting i needed to blur it. the problem is, that there's an un-natural DoF created, by blurring the background and not the car, which i might get away with because of the selective colouring.

However, in this following image, i dont want go selective, but i'm trying to create some sense of depth whilst still blurring the distracting background.

in order to acheive this i have done two stages of Gaussian blur, but there is still a definate hard edge where you can tell i've made the selection.

any ideas on how to rectify this, or other ways to create what i'm after would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

G

 

[ukglyn]

Did you feather the selection you made before adding the blur, it may be called something different on GIMP, but would deffo be there I would imagine. This will then soften the edge of your selection & make it look more natural.

 

[moodye]

ok thanks, i'll have a look see. So do you think i'm going about the effect in the right way? or is there a more suitable process to achieve what i'm after?

 

[Carter64]

Yep, GIMP deff has a 'feather' option to it's selection tools. There's also a 'focus blur' which has a lot more options.

 

[moodye]

where would i find 'focus blur', ive been through all the menu's and i cant find it. its probably right in front of me though

 

[Carter64]

It's under 'Filters' -> 'Blur'.
Oh, erm just had a thought. I have the 'extras' filters pack installed, as well as the standard stuff. Been that long since mine was bog-standard, I'm not 100% it'll be there.
Damn. You may have look at: http://registry.gimp.org/node/8236

 

[moodye]

thanks for that

 

[nano]

The other problem is that as objects are farther from the focal plane the more they blur. In the mustang shot the building in the background is relatively straight on to the camera so one of end the building wont be much blurrier than the other (also the contrast change might be helping) but then the elise is closer than the building and is pretty much as blurred as it, as are the guys standing behind the elise. In this case I'd apply a bit of blur to the elise, a bit more to the guys behind the elise and a bit more still to the building. However with the selective colour and that the blur isn't that far off what i'd expect to see its not so distracting.

With the escort shot you've got a much harder time, multiple people at different distances and the building moving into the distance at an angle, you can get really funky with gradients on a shadow mask for a blur layer (I'm pretty sure gimp can do this) but tbh your never really going to get rid of the distractions in that one. Watch the guy peeking in the window on the right, you didn't blur the part of him you can see through the window.

I've been to a lot of classic car shows in my time (my father is part of a club that organises one) and I've tried a lot of things to get decent shots there and i've actually given up. What i had intended to do (tbh i never got round to it) was if i saw a car i liked was find the owner and ask if they are busy next weekend for some pics. That way you get a car you can put where you want, in the light you want, with the composition you want and with the people in the background you (don't) want.

Bit more effort but the step up in the quality of your images will be substantial, and less faffing around in gimp fixing it later

 

[Kerioak]

Sometimes instead of blurring try putting in a translucent layer of white and masking it or reducing the satuation and lightness of the background (or even darkening it depending on the subject)