My first portrait attempt!

[zioneffect564]

Well like I said I'm brand new at it, any thoughts on how to improve would be great. I know about the arm and the distracting background but anything else would help. Thanks in advance.

 

[zioneffect564]

The color was so much better on my computer before i uploaded it.

 

[neea]

The exposure is very nice and even.
If the background was more out of focus it'd be better.. but you already know that
It's very clean. Great job and your first attempt. Keep it up.

 

[nabero]

I like it overall I've never done portraits so my .02 might not be worth much...

But...I wish I could see his arm that's cut off...If it were mine I would probably crop right under his belt loops so it looks more intentional (?).

Can't wait to see some of your other portraits

 

[zioneffect564]

Does anyone think if I threw a lasso around the background and put say a guassian blur on it it would make it look too fake? I was using my kit lens and it was at 70mm with the aperature wide open at f/5.6 the was most i could get out of it.

 

[nabero]

Does anyone think if I threw a lasso around the background and put say a guassian blur on it it would make it look too fake? I was using my kit lens and it was at 70mm with the aperature wide open at f/5.6 the was most i could get out of it.

Show me and then I'll tell you if I think it looks fake or not :greenpbl:

 

[Christie Photo]

Does anyone think if I threw a lasso around the background and put say a guassian blur on it it would make it look too fake?

I think I would do some cloning first, then the blur. A bit of vignette? Bump the catchlights? Just a thought.

Pete

 

[nabero]

I think I would do some cloning first, then the blur. A bit of vignette? Bump the catchlights? Just a thought.

Pete

:thumbup::thumbup:

 

[RedDevilUK]

because you tried to get the arm in the shot, his face isnt central to the picture... if he was waring a t-shirt and it was just a bare arm, it wouldnt be too bad. unfortunatly the blue stripes on the shirt draw your eyes to it. (loud shirts do this)

if its possible to take the picture again, ask him to stand a few feet away from the tree, this will make the tree/background slightly out of focus and will improve the shot.... as would his arm by his side

if you cant... crop it and loose the arm, and as mentioned above crop just below belt loops

im not a Pro, just giving you my honest opinion.... for what its worth

 

[zioneffect564]

I think I would do some cloning first, then the blur. A bit of vignette? Bump the catchlights? Just a thought.

Pete

I really like the edit and if you have time i'd really like to know how you cloned the background like that. Cloning isnt my thing at the moment it all turns out bad

 

[newrmdmike]

wow pete i'm impressed with that.

i agree you shouldn't have cut him out.

 

[Christie Photo]

...if you have time i'd really like to know how you cloned the background like that.

Umm... I just used the parts of the image next the the unwanted areas. I wish I could explain it better than that. I probably used some of the tree from above his left shoulder too. The lawn was pretty simple.

I hope this helps.

Pete


and, thanks Mike.

 

[zioneffect564]

Thanks and yes it did help

 

[AdamZx3]

The color was so much better on my computer before i uploaded it.

This can happen when you upload an image and it is either too large dimension wise or saved so the file size is too large, then the server has to quickly resize and resave the image, some better than others, but all usually lose detail and alter colors.
If you are using photoshop, try the save as web feature under file, and select the jpeg/ and high /very high, and at 100% on high there isnt any visible differance at 100%, little at 200% zoom. For your picture the filesize is 70k on high and 107k on very high. Hope this makes sense.


Cropped

Uncropped

Original

If you try the blur the backround out, your going to want to make seperate selections of the tree, your son, and the backround behind the tree, preferably using a mask for each so it can be reworked at any time. I also made a mask for the lawn seperatly (more on that in a sec.) Then made a radial gradiant in the tree's mask channel so that when I blur it, the center of the tree around his head is in focus and the further away from his head it gets out of focus. Next I opend up the lens blur dialog ( if you have an older version gausian blur works also) and then blured the tree mask first, then the grass with a bit more blur, then the rest with even more blur. The further away the more blur. I didnt really get fussy with it so its not the greatest, might be a touch too much but its 3am lol.

Also before I did the blur I did some color corrections, there was a green cast over the whole image (you can use the eye dropper tool to get an RGB value readout on the white collar) and I desaturated the grass and backround greens a bit so they whern't distracting, though after I was all done I realized it may have been a bit too much (looks like ohio grass now ) And im not working on my calibrated moniter, just my macbook, its overdue for a calibration so it might be a bit off.

this might help you with the clone tool, also remember that to get a good clone you almost always need to clone it with the stamp tool then use the healing brush to drag over it and fix it up, use a soft brush with the clone and a hard brush for the healing tool.
http://www.lonestardigital.com/rubber_stamp.htm
http://www.digitalretouch.org/download/healing/healing.pdf



Good job on the pic and let me know if you need any post editing help,
Adam