Maternity shoot C&C please

[mommy22]

Not in love with the door ppic. I see what you were trying to achieve but I don't think it worked. I think if you were to have more bokeh in the background it may be a bit better. Take her outside and do it again.

 

[bkristopher]

yes!! ok, so you did that with the layers and blur?

Yeah. I have CS4, but I'm guessing PSE can do this as well. Open your pic, Ctrl J to create duplicate layer, under filter tab select Gaussian Blur. When the box opens, adjust the Radius with the slider. I use anywhere from 4-16, depends on the pic. For this one, 9 worked pretty well, but like I said, quick edit and it's a small file. Apply filter, then kick down the opacity. This is done by eye, I usually go anywhere from 40%-60%, depends where it looks best. Sharpening beforehand may sound counter-intuitive, but it will preserve the details when you add the blur layer. An unsharpened pic with blur layer just looks like, well, a blurry pic.

Another version using similar technique to Subscuck. Slight tweak to the levels and sharpness prior to copying layer and applying gaussian blur. Then took a feathered eraser tool at a low tolerance and took out some over her face and belly.

 

[nchips1]

^ WAY too blurred.

 

[pmsnel]

^ WAY too blurred.

At least a lot less blurred than the one of Subscuck. I wasn't liking that one. This I can see where it's going, but not there yet.

 

[bkristopher]

IMO your flickr photostream shows more potential than what you have posted here.

 

[subscuck]

At least a lot less blurred than the one of Subscuck. I wasn't liking that one. This I can see where it's going, but not there yet.

Like I said, quick edit with a hit or miss method. Sometimes it works well, other times not so much.....