Mikes Photography

Blue · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 2:52 am Post subject: fabric ripples

I don't know what to do with this. I need to get rid of these ripples in the fabric on the floor, but I'd like to keep the shadow. I've tried dodging, but it just looks crappy- I can't get it to look natural around the foot. I need this to look... like it wasn't photoshopped. I tried making a selection around the foot, inverting it, and using a gaussian blur- which had the effect I wanted on the white, bt I couldn't keep it from blurring the edges of the foot as well. I am really fed up with trying to fix this.
If anyone has any enlightening ideas, please share them. Smile

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi

creators · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 4:47 am Post subject:

I don't know if this looks natural enough. I'll save the how for the moment, cos if it's not natural enough I'll have to think again.

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Evolution104 · 2Fast 2Furious Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 998

Hi Blue,
I don't know what you have for editing photos, so this may not work for you -
Using your image, I make a quick attempt to see what I could do with CS3:

In CS3 (maybe CS2 as well), do this:

1 ) Use the magic wand to select the whitest areas of the background leaving the shadow areas you want.
2 ) Feather the selection (Select > Modify > Feather...) I used a value around 5.
3 ) While selected, go to Image > Adjustments > Exposure and decrease the Gamma Correction slider all the way left to make all of the selection white.
4 ) Deselect the selection.
5 ) Use the clone stamp tool to clean up the edges of the photo left over from feathering the selection.
6 ) Repeat steps 1 - 4 if needed to really make the background white.

You might wish to also clean up the ripples in the shadow area with the clone stamp tool and maybe the smudge tool - I didn't bother to spend the time...

You could get a softer look by feathering more and reducing the gamma less.

John

creators · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 11:12 am Post subject:

Nice one John and that's a whole lot quicker and easier than my attempt.
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Blue · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:17 pm Post subject:

Thanks for taking the time to work on this, both of you. Smile

It is much appreciated!

Both attempts look good. I think the shadow looks better in the first, but the foot is more untouched in the second- which is really my priority. I will try the magic wand method. Although I am going to put it aside for a couple of days and come back to it. I literally worked for hours on this one image last night, and I just need to walk away now for a bit.

It keeps coming up in my work that things need to be isolated, and I am just not skilled at it yet. I did buy a book on it that looks promising, but it's a long book, LOL- it's going to be a long learning curve for me. I feel like I have the information I need, I just can't make it all come together.

Anyway, thanks a lot. Smile

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi

creators · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:27 pm Post subject:

Um. oddly enough the foot was meant to be completely untouched in my version on a completely separate layer to the background. My priority was to maintain the foot as is whilst rendering the background. Having checked, you are absolutely right and I am at a loss to think how that happened. Bother.

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Evolution104 · 2Fast 2Furious Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 998

Blue · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 5:59 pm Post subject:

creators · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject:

I agree with you John, every picture is different and requires it's own touch so having a host of techniques in your arsenal is invaluable, and great job second time around too.

I'll do the walk through this evening Blue, hopefully have it up in an hour or so. I've been thinking about the model floor a lot lately. At present I just have the paper roll backdrop extended about 8 feet across the floor and it is far from ideal, as it scuffs as soon as someone walks on it. I've been thinking about putting down two 8' x 4' sheets of plywood and painting (emulsion) one side white and the other black so I can flip them depending on the backdrop, but also just give them a once over with a lick of paint when any scuffs appear.
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creators · Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject:

Smoothing out a floor using gaussian blur is tricky because as Blue said if you get close to an object like this foot, do a selection, feather it and apply a blur it picks up colour from the object which blurs into a halo and ruins the job.

I would always try John's method first, because you're going to know relatively quickly whether it's going to work or not, and with any processing, start with the easiest and only get into more complex stuff as you exhaust other solutions. Blue's looking to do a lot of picture processing and if one picture takes an hour, or more, you can suddenly find yourself with a horrendous time commitment that may well be impossible to meet.

However, this is what I did. Open the image and make a selection of the object you want to preserve using magic wand, Lasso tool or polygon lasso tool or magnetic lasso tool, it's worth learning how to use all of them because they all have their uses and can save a lot of time. Relying on just the magic wand or lasso tool can be incredibly time consuming.

Copy/cut and paste the object as a new layer so that the object is on the new layer and the background with an object shaped hole is on the background layer. Duplicate the background layer and move the duplicate over to overlap the hole, this is for when we apply the blur, and cut out most of the new layer, just leave the shadow area.

Merge these two background layers together. Apply a Gaussian blur, with preview on you can select the setting that seems to work best. Don't worry if you start to see the chequered background because you're blurring to transparency.

Once you're happy with the blur, ok it and if you can see the chequered background, duplicate the layer a few times until you can see it is opaque.

Merge these copies if you had to duplicate the layers. You are now left with a blurred background layer and the object (foot) layer. You can do further selecting and blurring to improve the image further. You can also do some burning to improve the shadow if you want to, remember to keep the Exposure down to 3 - 5%.

It's time to blend the object with the background. Select the object layer and using the magic wand, select the blank area around the object and Feather the selection by 1 pixel. Zoom in close to a section of the edge of the object and hit delete a few times, the edge will slowly erode, zoom in and out and examine different sections of the object, stop once you're happy, even if parts are not perfect, don't over delete some parts to get at others. Deselect and if there are any areas that still need removing, choose the eraser with a fairly hard edge and set the opacity to 50%. Delicately erase the edges you still don't want with gentle sweeping movements with quite a small brush close to the edge of the object.

Flatten the image when you're happy and that's it.

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Evolution104 · 2Fast 2Furious Joined: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 998

Very nice Keith Smilie_PDT

Good walk through. The result preserves the natural light of the backdrop far better than my method.

Blue · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:12 am Post subject:

Yeah, this is great, Keith, thanks! Can't wait to try this sometime this week (like I said, I'm taking a few days break from these type of images to save my sanity, LOL). But these ideas will help me get through this.

Thanks a million to both of you. Smile

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Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. - Albert Gyorgyi

creators · Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:51 am Post subject:

Thanks John and Blue, I have to say I don't practice what I preach because it's a pain in the ass. I spent last week doing some 50 odd pictures that Leah and her mates wanted and the backgrounds were a step too far. I need to rethink that because it's not really very professional given the amount of work I put in on the rest of the pictures. Now that I have decided on the copyright notice I'm happy with, it also shows up the backgrounds, so I really do have to get my act together.

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