Any suggestions on this to get rid of the two tone background?

[DavefromCt]

I don't like the line of white to black in the background. I've tried 'extract" filters in photoshop etc but just doesn't seem to work. I just want to make the background more pleasing. Thanks!

 

[The_Traveler]

Sorry, not clear what line it is that you don't like.

 

[DavefromCt]

Sorry, not clear what line it is that you don't like.

Well basically there is a light color at the bottom half right under the cat's nose then turns dark for the upper half. I just thought there was a way to change the background to a more solid color. Usually I have no problem but the hair is so fine it's hard to separate the subject from the background. Do you think maybe I'm being too picky, and should just leave it alone? Thanks for any input.

 

[Braineack]

I would turn the wall color you want by hand. Then go back in and blend the edges

 

[The_Traveler]

This may never be a satisfactory edit because of three factors.
A lot of this area is quite out of focus and thus the hair is blending into the background and selecting it will be an arduous and unsatisfactory result.
Second, that oof hair will be damn close to the color of the background.
And last, there seems to be a good deal of haloing. This may be due to backlighting or to excessive sharpening. In either case, the haloing just makes the job much more difficult.

If you still have the cat, another shot under better background conditions might help.

 

[DavefromCt]

This may never be a satisfactory edit because of three factors.
A lot of this area is quite out of focus and thus the hair is blending into the background and selecting it will be an arduous and unsatisfactory result.
Second, that oof hair will be damn close to the color of the background.
And last, there seems to be a good deal of haloing. This may be due to backlighting or to excessive sharpening. In either case, the haloing just makes the job much more difficult.

If you still have the cat, another shot under better background conditions might help.

View attachment 90303

Yeah, I think you're right about mostly what you're saying. The halo I can't see on my monitor...maybe because I just have a laptop. I'll see if I can get a better shot someday but it was a quick shot with it looking out the window and was one of my favorite shots. Maybe I'll just sell the cat....naw, my wife would kill me!

 

[annamaria]

You know what I like the shot anyway.

 

[DavefromCt]

Thank you!

 

[DavefromCt]

I don't like the line of white to black in the background. I've tried 'extract" filters in photoshop etc but just doesn't seem to work. I just want to make the background more pleasing. Thanks!

I've also got these two which I th ink I like better....comments?

 

[vintagesnaps]

I think it's a cool photo of the cat, I like the way the fur/hair along the top goes out of focus (and I don't necessarily care a lot for photos with little depth of field in focus but this seems to work).

I'd try cropping the left side to minimize that longer horizon line on that side of the photo. Usually I don't think it necessarily works to center a subject but in this case the focus of the photo seems to be the eyes and nose; so even if the cat is centered what draws the viewer's eyes (its eyes) wouldn't be centered. Having about the same length of that line horizontally on each side might make it less noticeable.

If you can get the camera set and framed and focused, and notice where the horizon lime will be and adjust your vantage point as needed, then watch for a good moment to capture. Of course this subject isn't probably going to wait for you to putz around with your camera LOL and you don't want to miss the moment so getting set and anticipating what may happen can help.

Since this is almost B&W anyway I might think about doing a black and white version, maybe play around with the contrast a little although it looks pretty good here.

 

[vintagesnaps]

The last one's nice too, I like that in color since in that light you see a little brown in the fur. I'd just think about how you're using space and balance when you frame shots. I think the closeup of the eye is kind of cool but the lashes being out of focus make me feel like I'm trying to see thru a blur.

In the last one that eye is dead center, I'd probably want some space for the cat to look into but maybe not so much. I usually just eyeball it and don't necessarily go strictly by the thirds principle, but in this case I think I'd try to have the eye about a third of the way from the left side of the frame (if that makes sense).

Your photos seem to need minimal adjustment, I think you seem to have an eye for this, it just takes practice at composing images and where to place objects/subjects in the frame (by moving yourself and adjusting your vantage point).

 

[DavefromCt]

The last one's nice too, I like that in color since in that light you see a little brown in the fur. I'd just think about how you're using space and balance when you frame shots. I think the closeup of the eye is kind of cool but the lashes being out of focus make me feel like I'm trying to see thru a blur.

In the last one that eye is dead center, I'd probably want some space for the cat to look into but maybe not so much. I usually just eyeball it and don't necessarily go strictly by the thirds principle, but in this case I think I'd try to have the eye about a third of the way from the left side of the frame (if that makes sense).

Your photos seem to need minimal adjustment, I think you seem to have an eye for this, it just takes practice at composing images and where to place objects/subjects in the frame (by moving yourself and adjusting your vantage point).

Thanks for the suggestions. Even though I've been doing this quite awhile and thought I had a good eye, it's nice to hear constructive tips like this to improve and fine tune. Thanks again!

 

[Buckster]

I don't like the line of white to black in the background. I've tried 'extract" filters in photoshop etc but just doesn't seem to work. I just want to make the background more pleasing. Thanks!

Yeah, it's a bit of a masking challenge alright, but I'll give it a shot:

 

[DavefromCt]

Wow, I'm flabbergasted! What a great job! I was just looking for suggestions and didn't mean for anyone to actually do it but thanks so much! Can you tell me what program you used or would you rather keep it a secret? I know when I fix some photos sometimes I can't even remember the steps I took I just kept fooling around until I got it. I have photoshop cs4 and downloaded an extraction plug-in and also tried other things but just couldn't get it to look good. So much appreciated!! -Dave

 

[Buckster]

Wow, I'm flabbergasted! What a great job! I was just looking for suggestions and didn't mean for anyone to actually do it but thanks so much! Can you tell me what program you used or would you rather keep it a secret? I know when I fix some photos sometimes I can't even remember the steps I took I just kept fooling around until I got it. I have photoshop cs4 and downloaded an extraction plug-in and also tried other things but just couldn't get it to look good. So much appreciated!! -Dave

Thank you kindly for the encouraging words. I don't really do secrets well. I'm pretty much an open book.

I'm using Photoshop CC 2014 and my trusty Wacom tablet here. I should say up front that I've been using Photoshop for over 15 years, use it almost daily, have taken quite a few online training classes for it from Lynda.com and KelbyOne.com, as well as learned a lot from the many free tutorials that can be found on the web. So a lot of it is instinct at this point, rather than specific steps I can lay out for you. Nonetheless, here's the basics of what I did:

I masked the dark area and the light area independently, then brought them together. I made a whole new background using the same basic light and dark gray tones laid down with a gradient tool, but then I desaturated that layer and added a bit of noise to calm down the banding. Speaking of banding, there was some in the cat itself, so I stamped and healed it out. That reminds me, I did take the image up from 8 bit to 16 bit before I started, to help with stuff like that. I then touched up that background layer a bit here and there with a soft brush set to a very low flow rate to make it fit the cat's mask better.

Finally, not all the hairs masked perfectly, so I made a custom "cat hair" brush to simulate them on top of the image on a new layer. I sampled the shades from near white to near black from the original image while painting them. I tried to get them close to the originals by putting a hue/saturation layer clipped to the new cat hair painting layer set to make them stand out as a bright green, then painted them over a copy of the original image that I temporarily placed on a layer below the "cat hair" layer, sort of like tracing them. The bright green helped me see what I had done and what still needed to be dealt with. When finished, I just turned off the hue/saturation adjustment layer to return the newly made cat hairs to the correct colors.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.