Photoshop or Light Room getting rid of the background

[Designer]

If you do retake with this dress or another similar, be aware that colors toward the reds and certain fabrics can cause highlights to blow, and problems with saturation.

I don't know what it is with girls and pink. Pink is the hardest color to match for one thing, and if you stop to think about it, it's not even a real color. I shudder if one child in a group is wearing pink because whatever color is next to it will look like cr@p. Clashy-clashy. That edit above with a graduated pink background looks pretty good, but you couldn't have any other color in there and still have it look good. (/RANT)

 

[matrosov]

If you do retake with this dress or another similar, be aware that colors toward the reds and certain fabrics can cause highlights to blow, and problems with saturation.

I don't know what it is with girls and pink. Pink is the hardest color to match for one thing, and if you stop to think about it, it's not even a real color. I shudder if one child in a group is wearing pink because whatever color is next to it will look like cr@p. Clashy-clashy. That edit above with a graduated pink background looks pretty good, but you couldn't have any other color in there and still have it look good. (/RANT)

LOL she is a girl and I am a newbie when it comes to photos. Double whammy.

 

[matrosov]

This took about 5 minutes in Photoshop - but I do use a plugin (Topaz Remask). More importantly, this also shows a way to make a background with the gradient tool that is customized for the subject.

View attachment 135514

Wow thanks a lot that looks pretty awesome.

 

[matrosov]

Select and Mask.
0. Open Photoshop. Choose Select and Mask.
Step 1. Quick select brush, Choose the girl and any tree, without selecting any background.
Step 2. Refine Edge brush, all the way aroung the photo where subject and background mix.
Step 3. Press OK.
Step 3. Create Fill Layer, choose black. Put fill layer under Mask layer.
Step 4. Save as.

There were a few hard areas, this photo is more of an advanced selecting image as it is easy for the refine edge brush to act funny, may be my cpu. . I find if During step 2, Refining edge, if I choose another brush, then come back to refine edge, it will choose large parts of the photo.

The hand on the left needed some manual painting, tree on the bottom right, and the star. 2 Minutes if your fast. 30 minutes for me. Hours for a total beginner, watch a few tutorials

EDIT;I just noticed the arm, easy fix... these operations its all about attention to detail.View attachment 135513

OGs thanks a lot you even saved a tree . I need to get more serious with PS.

 

[matrosov]

.. my living room and not very happy with background.

I'm curious as to why you don't like the background. IMO it's not exactly terrible, so what's so bad about it? I would probably just keep them with the background as is. Face reality; you weren't doing studio shots, so it's your living room, BFD. If anybody complains, they can take the pictures next year.

Now if you absolutely need to do something, just darken the background a bit, particularly the ceiling lights, and call it good.

Few of them came out pretty nicely, for a noob, sharpness and pose wise. There were potential in those few to cleanup colors and to blow them up a bit but those lights hermit crab habitat and that damn surround sound speaker in forefront just annoy me

 

[smoke665]

nk is the hardest color to match

Yup, and there's some other things going on, which is why I suggested a retake. The OP is trying to overcome those problems post, but there are limits. First from the EXIF 1/30 at f/4.0 isn't a good combination for sharpness or DOF. I also believe the WB is off, I searched for a couple of points, finally settling on the wall to the right as the best choice. You can't get pink without a good WB. I tried to recover the highlights on the dress but as I suspected they're blown. Shiny fabric of any color is horrible but any of the saturated colors is even worse. You have to get the light right, or it will blow every time. Had you exposed for the dress, even to the point of -EV it would have helped.

 

[matrosov]

nk is the hardest color to match

Yup, and there's some other things going on, which is why I suggested a retake. The OP is trying to overcome those problems post, but there are limits. First from the EXIF 1/30 at f/4.0 isn't a good combination for sharpness or DOF. I also believe the WB is off, I searched for a couple of points, finally settling on the wall to the right as the best choice. You can't get pink without a good WB. I tried to recover the highlights on the dress but as I suspected they're blown. Shiny fabric of any color is horrible but any of the saturated colors is even worse. You have to get the light right, or it will blow every time. Had you exposed for the dress, even to the point of -EV it would have helped.

View attachment 135521

Yeah I grabbed that one exported as jpeg as an example I have all of them in RAW. I have few more at 5.6 to 11 aperture range. WB in camera is a lost cause in my house because walls and ceilings are cream peach floors are honey and LED lights add to all that there is not a thing that is white in that picture except her shoes. In the histogram I didn't see any highlights everything is pretty dark to midtone. Must be how that light was playing off of her dress and me not doing it properly.

 

[Designer]

WB in camera is a lost cause in my house because walls and ceilings are cream peach floors are honey and LED lights add to all that there is not a thing that is white in that picture except her shoes.

Maybe triple whammy. You could use the shoes for a WB adjustment, and I think I see something white on a shelf under the speaker, but it has the color cast of the room color, so who can tell?

Aside from mixing colors of light, you've got that color reflection going on too. By all means, use this as a learning experience and be ready for next time. Even with capturing the Raw file and shooting a WB target, having two or three different colors of light is going to be problematic.

If you have a flash or two, use them, and turn off the room lights next time.

 

[smoke665]

Yeah I grabbed that one exported as jpeg as an example I have all of them in RAW.

It's hard to judge color tint exactly without seeing it first. I tried using the white on the shoes but it seemed a little to cool. The wall seemed a better choice but if cream it's probably a little to warm then. I carry 3 cards on a lanyard (one white, one black and one neutral gray), they're less than $10 bucks on the internet. Before a I start shooting I spread them out hold them in front of the camera and take a shot. Then in LR I match the white balance to a card, and synch all in the series. In lieu of that piece of white Styrofoam will work.

You say you have some at higher f/stop, were those also at slow shutter ? Even with a tripod, you're not going to get sharp focus with ambient light at that slow on a living subject. Were you on manual or auto and were you metering off the dress/face with spot meter, or was it metering the room. I would have been on manual, spot metering off the dress/face, which would have taken the background dark.

 

[matrosov]

Good question I was in manual focused on her face trying to dial the in camera metering via shutter back to 0. It was tripod mounted and wireless release for all of them. At that 4.0 aperture the fastest I went was 1/60 on a shutter. I have to find the 11s, probably still on a card somewhere. That was of course before I got educated here that camera meter does absolutely not a thing when you have flash mounted. So I was doing it all kinds of wrong for flash shots trying to dial it on for proper exposure instead of just taking a picture at good combos and seeing how it comes out. .

 

[smoke665]

Good question I was in manual focused on her face trying to dial the in camera metering via shutter back to 0. It was tripod mounted and wireless release for all of them. At that 4.0 aperture the fastest I went was 1/60 on a shutter. I have to find the 11s, probably still on a card somewhere. That was of course before I got educated here that camera meter does absolutely not a thing when you have flash mounted. So I was doing it all kinds of wrong for flash shots trying toial it on for proper exposure instead of just taking a picture at good combos and seeing how it comes out. .

Ok now I'm confused. ??? Why were your at ISO 800???? Were you in Program, or aperture mode maybe??? Did your flash fire????


camera meter does absolutely not a thing when you have flash
No regardless of if you have a flash mounted, it's measuring incident light.

trying to dial the in camera metering via shutter back to 0
If you were using a flash then the flash and the Aperture control the exposure.

 

[matrosov]

UGH Did I forget to turn off auto ISO? Oh well yet another lesson learned . Thanks Smoke for catching it.