What to do about ugly background?

[Buckster]

Fake blur does suck, PS fake blur especially. There are some decent options out there, but without a genuine depth map I don't think it's possible to accurately render it.

We all see it every day in advertising, on magazine covers, etc., and rarely if ever question it's veracity because it looks completely natural most of the time, and we just plain can't tell - you included. Saying it sucks (especially if made by PS - LOL) as though it's some kind absolute universal truth is just pretentious baloney.

 

[unpopular]

we just plain can't tell - you included.

I can pretty much guantee that I could tell, or at least confuse it for a crappy lens. No matter how many magazine ads use it.

But i understand how you pros have to protect your position of being idolized.

especially if made by PS - LOL

You're right. Next time I will be more respectful of the great and powerful Adobe.

 

[amolitor]

We will actually accept a tremendous amount of inaccurate modification to a photograph before we begin to casually reject it as "faked". This is mainly because photographs look real, they begin as real tracing of the real world, so we approach them with an attitude of trust. It takes a fairly ham-fisted edit to shake us from that attitude.

There's a whole lot of daylight between "I can tell if I look super close and think really hard" and "the casual viewer will reject it as faked".

 

[unpopular]

There's a whole lot of daylight between "I can tell if I look super close and think really hard" and "the casual viewer will reject it as faked".

And this is why it works in magazines ... I personally would hope though that we all aim beyond 'casual viewing' at 133lpi where a "good enough" attitude might be appropriate.

 

[Derrel]

First I am going to suggest using some sort of Lens or Focus blur instead of a Gaussian blur. Secondly, I will emphasize that whatever technique you use to blend, you want to be able to feather the effect fairly delicately.

This was done by:

- duplicate layer
- partially desaturate, and then apply a modest focus blur to that layer
- blend the two layers, leaving the kid, the dog, and the foreground material pretty much alone, and feathering back to increase the effect as you proceed further back along the lawn and the fence
- one more layer to burn some stuff and make it darker

View attachment 47683

ETA: also opened up the darkest tones a bit so the kid's eyes don't look so much like little black coals

This post-processing adjustment has taken the ugly fence background and made it look like the photographer shot the photo of the boy and dog in front of an ugly fence at around f/5.6 with a 50mm lens on full-frame digital. The OOF effect here is pretty close to "real" out of focus...at least at this very small size. The background is still sub-par, but it looks like genuine DOF blurring at this size.

 

[unpopular]

The OOF effect here is pretty close to "real" out of focus...at least at this very small size.

Really? While I agree with your post in general, the OOF looks entirely fake to me. The DOF doesn't seem to match the geometry at all, the bokeh has no texture or variation at all and seems flat. While I realize that amolitor probably didn't spend a lot of time on this, I have seen good examples of fauxkeh and this really isn't even a close approximation.

 

[amolitor]

The OOF effect here is pretty close to "real" out of focus...at least at this very small size.

Really? While I agree with your post in general, the OOF looks entirely fake to me. The DOF doesn't seem to match the geometry at all, the bokeh has no texture or variation at all and seems flat. While I realize that amolitor probably didn't spend a lot of time on this, I have seen good examples of fauxkeh and this really isn't even a close approximation.

Fooled YOU. What you don't know is that I found an identical kid and dog on modelmayhem, and quickly built myself an identical fence. That's SOOC, baby.

 

[unpopular]

Are you really too lazy to shoot at f/1.2, amolitor? I mean seriously, how much effort does it take to screw on an ND filter?

 

[esselle]

I took some photos recently of my daughter in my garage. My garage is horribly messy, but I made the best of it, by trying to keep the background darker than the subject (my daughter). Still couldn't get it (the background) to where I wanted. I didn't post edit it either, which might have helped, but I doubt it. I didn't want the picture to look like the background was nothingness, a black space. But, it taught me a lesson, which is to really think of my background, and will it distract from the subject. In my case, some here commented that it did distract from the overall picture. I agreed. Lessons learned!

Like you, I've never used photoshop...I didn't know that all those cool effects could be created with it. Buck did a great job, above! When I think of PS, I think of something fun to do with photos. I think it gets a bad rap, because it's often used to trick people. I've been on exercise message boards, and people have been 'accused' of photoshopping someone else's body using their face, when showing progress pics. lol. That's just one example of the connotation it has...

I will say though...in your case...I honestly don't think the fence is half bad. lol

[edit to add; i agree with cgipson on trying to get the shot right to begin with as opposed to trying to edit over the mistakes, after the fact...which takes time to learn, when you're new. but, i'm learning. Photography takes a lot of patience, and you might not always get that 'right' shot the first time out. Maybe the next day, you will. But, we want it NOW. lol It's human nature. To get better at anything, takes time. No way around it. So, if we keep at it, the mistakes will be fewer, and the need to edit out this or that, will be less.] Sorry for my ramblings, just my thoughts on it!

 

[amolitor]

We all see it every day in advertising, on magazine covers, etc., and rarely if ever question it's veracity because it looks completely natural most of the time, and we just plain can't tell

I'm curious, if we can't tell, how do you know? That's a genuine question. For all I know you work in the ad industry, and that's how. But I'd like to know the answer!

 

[unpopular]

^^ I was wondering the same thing. I am sure that they do use it in situations where the art director is not sure what direction to take, the client requests a something different than what he or she had in mind, the photographer didn't receive direction and made a judgement call which didn't work out in the final comp, stock which is otherwise suitable ... stuff like that ... it'd seem though that there is a place for aperture bracketing, so that a photographer wouldn't need to make that final decision and provide the art director a choice, does this feature exist?

But having been an art director, I'd much rather have a photograph that can be prepped for print without having to add a faux blur. Making it look even passable takes a lot of time. Graphic artists don't have the luxury of creating accurate depth maps, which is kind of a special skill in of itself. At the same time, I can appreciate the flexibility of having a sharp image which you add blur after since you can only sharpen so much, I just kind of doubt that this is common practice.

Of course, how they do things in the million-dollar placement market might be a little different and I could very well be wrong. I do notice it frequently on television programs, I find it especially distracting.

 

[vintagesnaps]

In the original photo the part of the background that seems most distracting is the dark corner where there's light coming thru the fence - I found my eyes somewhat drawn along the fence to that. I'd think about cropping the left side of the photo to eliminate that.

It's a fun photo of the boy playing with the dog, and I don't think I'd alter the background much otherwise because it would be obvious that it wasn't their backyard if something else was edited in.

I think it would work to leave the area on the right side of the photo as is since it gives some space where the boy and dog would be moving towards, and keeps it from seeming too cut off.

 

[Buckster]

we just plain can't tell - you included.

I can pretty much guantee that I could tell, or at least confuse it for a crappy lens.

<unwarranted snarky condescension snipped>

I like how you left out "most of the time" from my quote, so as to better erect your strawman fallacy. Kudos.

This will be child's play for you and a couple other purists with the keen eyes of a hawk, no doubt, but it's worth others having a look to see if they can easily spot the fake. Since a fake blur (ESPECIALLY a fake blur made in PS) sucks SO horribly bad, it should be obvious to all. So, let's have some fun.

One of these is a fake blur. Not only that, but it was faked in PS, which makes it especially suck. Which is the obvious fake blur, and what makes it obvious?

 

[Juga]

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

I do want to guess though because I love games...1 or 3 is the fake and I am leaning towards 3

 

[IByte]

I like how you left out "most of the time" from my quote, so as to better erect your strawman fallacy. Kudos.

This will be child's play for you and a couple other purists with the keen eyes of a hawk, no doubt, but it's worth others having a look to see if they can easily spot the fake. Since a fake blur (ESPECIALLY a fake blur made in PS) sucks SO horribly bad, it should be obvious to all. So, let's have some fun.

One of these is a fake blur. Not only that, but it was faked in PS, which makes it especially suck. Which is the obvious fake blur, and what makes it obvious?

Woooo hooo lucky number #2!