First attempt at combining 2 photos - adding bokeh

[SquarePeg39]

Please feel free to nit pick and/or offer your opinion on adding bokeh artificially. Was experimenting on a flower shot from a few months ago and wanted to see if I could add bokeh without it being completely obvious. Successful? Been looking at it so long I've lost all perspective.

BlueHydrangeaBokeh_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr

 

[zombiesniper116 15]

Brave or smart having on flicker giving people the option to zoom in like that.

I like it. The fact you went with what looks like a 7 blade aperture and not just fuzzy balls is why even on close inspection it wouldn't strike me as being fake.
The only thing I would wonder is if you had removed some from in front since you do have quite a few there which I would have assumed to be from rain.

Overall very well done.

Take this as you will since you're miles ahead of me on this.

Edit: The more I look at it the more I think the background looks like this shiny glass beads could produce this effect.........darn it have to go look again.

Still great job.

 

[smoke665]

One word - nice.

 

[KmH]

Bokeh is an inherent quality of a lens determined by the lens construction.
Bokeh is not adjustable. It can't be added or subtracted during the exposure, or post process.

Depth-of field is adjustable and can be simulated post process.
Depth-of-field can't be increased post process, but it can be be simulated as a reduction.

 

[SquarePeg39]

Brave or smart having on flicker giving people the option to zoom in like that.

I like it. The fact you went with what looks like a 7 blade aperture and not just fuzzy balls is why even on close inspection it wouldn't strike me as being fake.
The only thing I would wonder is if you had removed some from in front since you do have quite a few there which I would have assumed to be from rain.

Overall very well done.

Take this as you will since you're miles ahead of me on this.

Edit: The more I look at it the more I think the background looks like this shiny glass beads could produce this effect.........darn it have to go look again.

Still great job.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I did consider leaving some in front but I liked it better without. I'll definitely be trying this again

One word - nice.

Thanks!

Bokeh is an inherent quality of a lens determined by the lens construction.
Bokeh is not adjustable. It can't be added or subtracted during the exposure, or post process.

Depth-of field is adjustable and can be simulated post process.
Depth-of-field can't be increased post process, but it can be be simulated as a reduction.

Well I did say to nit pick, LOL.

 

[Tim Tucker]

Why?

Why give the background a contrast and colour that competes with the foreground?

The bokeh itself is a kind I find harsh and frankly a bit cliched, glowing balls with sharp edges rather than the softer less distracting pattern I associate with pleasing. The problem I find is not that it's un-convincing but that we associate distance with receding contrast and detail. Yet your added background, although it's supposed to be out of focus, actually has quite sharp edges and is quite detailed. It comes forward and the flower is really sitting in it rather than on top of it. The blue in it as well makes it too similar to the subject.

 

[SquarePeg39]

Why?

Why give the background a contrast and colour that competes with the foreground?

The bokeh itself is a kind I find harsh and frankly a bit cliched, glowing balls with sharp edges rather than the softer less distracting pattern I associate with pleasing. The problem I find is not that it's un-convincing but that we associate distance with receding contrast and detail. Yet your added background, although it's supposed to be out of focus, actually has quite sharp edges and is quite detailed. It comes forward and the flower is really sitting in it rather than on top of it. The blue in it as well makes it too similar to the subject.

View attachment 126892

Your detailed comments are very helpful, thank you!

I like the changes you made. Can you share specifics on what you did?

 

[Tim Tucker]

Your detailed comments are very helpful, thank you!

I like the changes you made. Can you share specifics on what you did?

A bit rough and ready and really only done to illustrate the visual difference.

In photoshop I always check colour balance first with a simple tool. Create a duplicate layer, go to Image/Adjustments/Match Colour and check the neutralise box. What this really does is shift the colours so the balance to the eye is more stable and gives me an idea of how balanced the colour is and how much contrast there is between colours. I find your original too green/blue and wanted to add a touch of yellow (ups the red) to contrast the blue of the flowers and make it stand out more. So to protect the blue I used Select/Colour range to select it, converted it to a mask on my Colour Match layer and inverted the mask, (masked out the blue by selecting it and inverting so the corrected colour balance was applied to everything but the blue).

I then simply duplicated this layer, modified the mask with the paint brush, (the nature of the image makes it easy to do this seamlessly), and applied a Gaussian blur (Filters/Blur) to the background.

 

[OGsPhotography]

Awesome.

Great first try at this technique and great discussion! Sorry I cannot add much.

To answer the OP question, I do not find the technique obvious.

Did you just replace the background with a layer mask? Or did you use a filter or add blur also? Are there other ways to do this? Am I missing the completely obvious lol?

 

[SquarePeg39]

A bit rough and ready and really only done to illustrate the visual difference.

In photoshop I always check colour balance first with a simple tool. Create a duplicate layer, go to Image/Adjustments/Match Colour and check the neutralise box. What this really does is shift the colours so the balance to the eye is more stable and gives me an idea of how balanced the colour is and how much contrast there is between colours. I find your original too green/blue and wanted to add a touch of yellow (ups the red) to contrast the blue of the flowers and make it stand out more. So to protect the blue I used Select/Colour range to select it, converted it to a mask on my Colour Match layer and inverted the mask, (masked out the blue by selecting it and inverting so the corrected colour balance was applied to everything but the blue).

I then simply duplicated this layer, modified the mask with the paint brush, (the nature of the image makes it easy to do this seamlessly), and applied a Gaussian blur (Filters/Blur) to the background.

I don't know if that color match tool is available in Elements, I'll have to look for it or see if there is an equivalent. Thanks again for the input and the example.

Did you just replace the background with a layer mask? Or did you use a filter or add blur also? Are there other ways to do this? Am I missing the completely obvious lol?

I'm sure there are easier ways to do what I did... I'm working in PSE11 so things are a bit different than PS and this is the first time I've used layers so I was really just winging it based on my very sketchy memories of a couple of tutorials that I viewed a few months ago. I used the flower photo as the background layer then added a layer that was just the "bokeh" and adjusted the opacity of the bokeh layer to my liking then I used the eraser tool to remove the bokeh layer from the flower. When I try this again I'll keep @Tim Tucker 's advice in mind about using blur and making sure the background doesn't detract from the subject.