My daughter at her orchestra concert.

[BTBeilke]

Here is a pic of my daughter playing violin at a orchestra concert. I'm curious what you all think of the effect in the Photoshopped (is that a word?) pic compared to the original.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1075567/CRW_1408-4x6orig.jpg

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1075567/CRW_1408-4x6.jpg

[queenbee288]

I like the first one better. Very nice.

[Curtis N]

Nice shot!
"Photoshopped" is a commonly used verb that's sure to find its way into dictionaries eventually.

It's fun to play with effects, but for this image I prefer the original. The picture tells a story, and the kids in the background are part of the story. Decades from now, she'll be able to look at that picture and remember her friends from the school orchestra and the great times she had with them.

One thing I would do though is straighten it so the post of the music stand is plumb.

[Art Rodriguez]

I must agree, the first one is better. Although I must admit I liked what you did with the second one.

Art

[Harold_L]

I really like to see young people making music together. I've been doing it most of my life, and hope they will continue to do so, also.

Harold

[Salleke]

Very nice shot and I like them both. Playing music is something you do with friends or fellow musiciens.
But it's allso something you do alone to enjoy the sounds caressing your mind and heart and that's why
I love the second one too. Being together and alone together is being a musicien.

Good luck with your daughter.

[GyRob]

i like them both but the 2nd one looks like shes floating and the stand,intresting effect though.
Rob.

[Big_B]

Like the others, I prefer the first one. If you like you could soften the background a little, but you need to ensure that the floor by her feet is in focus. I also think that the selective colouring, combined with the blur is too much.

[BTBeilke]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I was zoomed in so close doing the layer masking that I hadn't even noticed the stand not being plum. When I was finished, I also thought it looked like she was floating.

Basically, I was just trying to minimized the background clutter and I didn't really like having one kid hidden behind my daughter. And, I always keep all my negatives (RAW files), so we'll always have the original. I think I'll try revealing some of the floor around her chair and the stand to eliminate the floating appearance.

Thanks again for the useful feedback.

[barrettd]

I agree with the floor.... I think the second one would be really cool if the floor was in place. It would be like having a spotlight on her :) A girl in her own moment of music.... :) Cool photo

[Maureen Souza]

Very nice. I can see where you are coming from with the 2nd print but I also prefer the first one. It really makes her look a part of the orchestra.

[Actionphotog]

I really like the original better. with the edited one she looks so lonely and floating
good work

[BTBeilke]

OK, here is some additional tinkering. I rotated the picture to make the stand vertical, revealed the floor around her feet to anchor her in the picture, and cleaned up some of the white spots on the floor. I understand (and tend to agree) that the consensus is for the original version. But I do like this 'shopped version better than the first.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1075567/CRW_1408-rotated-w-floor.jpg

[Tonky]

I prefer the original. Blurring the background is one of the most difficult things to do convincingly in post processing. In the 'real world' depth of field decreases gardually and isn't a sudden cut off between sharp and blurred as in your pic, which is why the shot looks obviously manipulated, and you have halos around the foreground figure which only serve to show that you've used masks to manipulate the image. Converting the background to grey scale hasn't helped either

Rome wasn't built in a day though as far as Photoshop et al is concerned, and it's highy commendable that you're attempting these techniques. :cool:

Instead of trying to blur the whole background in one go, try gradually blurring the background away from the camera by using several masks, gradually blurring the background more with each mask, feathering and overlappng the masks. It really is one of the most difficult things to do convincingly though however skilled you are, and it's one of those effects best achieved in the camera. ;)

[Titus213]

I really like your final version but only as a PS exercise. Nice work. As a photo I like the original. She is a part of a larger group and the first image shows it.

[BTBeilke]

I prefer the original. Blurring the background is one of the most difficult things to do convincingly in post processing. In the 'real world' depth of field decreases gardually and isn't a sudden cut off between sharp and blurred as in your pic, which is why the shot looks obviously manipulated, and you have halos around the foreground figure which only serve to show that you've used masks to manipulate the image. Converting the background to grey scale hasn't helped either.

You make a lot of great points Tonky and I agree that it's best to get this effect straight from the camera. This pic was taken a f2.8 (which is the largest aperature that I have available), but due to the distance I was from the stage and how close the orchestra members were to each other (relatively speaking), it was hard to get a lot of separation.

As a bit of further explanation, I wasn't really trying for a realistic look with this editing (as you pointed out, the B&W background alone eliminates an out-of-the-camera feel). On the other hand, I didn't like the floating in air effect. Also, I should say that we have a ton of pics with Emily as part of the total orchestra including the original posted here. The PS'd pic is more of an "in addition to" as opposed to a "replacement for" the original.

Often, especially in the full orchestra and not her age group section, Emily is sitting in a position where you can only really see her head. My wife asked me for an orchestra picture that really featured Emily. Since Emily hasn't gotten that big solo yet ;), the original pic in this post was the best/closest I could come to the pic for which she was looking. Therefore, the initial idea was to isolate Emily. (I figure if I can produce the pics my wife wants, she'll be more amenable to future photo gear purchases. :D)

Also, you mentioned halos. I was very careful (I thought) in painstakenly masking this image. When I look at the picture, I don't notice halos, but I likely don't have the best eye for these types of artifacts yet. Or maybe there is something present in the JPEG (saved for the Web) that I don't see in PS. In any event, could you point out some specific instances of halos that caught your attention?

[Tonky]

Also, you mentioned halos. I was very careful (I thought) in painstakenly masking this image. When I look at the picture, I don't notice halos, but I likely don't have the best eye for these types of artifacts yet. Or maybe there is something present in the JPEG (saved for the Web) that I don't see in PS. In any event, could you point out some specific instances of halos that caught your attention?

The light halos are most noticeable around the bottom of the left sleeve, hand, and head of the violin. I've done some quick and cheerful pixel pushing to show the difference..

http://www.tomkinson.org/gallery2/d/8560-2/violin.jpg

Sorry, I was trying to be helpful, not over-critical. I do commercial photo restoration, so this stuff tends to leap out at me.

[BTBeilke]

The light halos are most noticeable around the bottom of the left sleeve, hand, and head of the violin. I've done some quick and cheerful pixel pushing to show the difference..

Sorry, I was trying to be helpful, not over-critical. I do commercial photo restoration, so this stuff tends to leap out at me.

Actually, I appreciate your comments very much. I am here to learn. Also, I'm and engineer and we typically take our projects through "critical design reviews". In these reviews, it is the job of the panel to try to identify any flaws in the designs being discussed early in the project cycle. So I'm very used to constructive criticism.

Liked I mentioned, I was confident the problem was with my eye, not yours. As soon as I read your comments and compared the pics, the halos you mentioned jumped right out at me. I went back into PS and they are present there also. The probem is with the background image. When I blurred the background, the white from Emily's sleeves was expanded beyond the limits of her shirt and blended with the background. So even though my mask is very tight, that halo appears. (I hope that explanation isn't confusing).

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-9/1075567/CRW_1408-background.jpg

When you say you did a little "pixel pushing", do you mean cloning to cover the lighter part of the exposed background?

For the record, if I were to do this all over again, I'd probably keep the color in the background (at least until I was done with other editing) and would not have blurred the background as much as I did.

Thanks for your help.

[DocFrankenstein]

I really like what you managed to do with the second one... especially the glow around the arm makes the eye go there.

If it were my daughter, 10 years from now I surely wouldn't care about somebody playing the violing next to her... ?)

[Tonky]

When you say you did a little "pixel pushing", do you mean cloning to cover the lighter part of the exposed background?

.

That's one way to do it but there are several ways you can do it actually. The way I find the easiest is to draw a tight mask up to edge of the area where you want to lose the halo. You can take it a bit at a time using as many small freehand masks as you like. I then use a retouching tool in PSP which is just basically a smear type tool, and push the pixels up to the edge of the mask. Setting the smear tool opacity fairly low will help to build up gradually to the density you want and hide any obvious retouching marks.

When you're working on a low res image like this one you may end up with aliasing (jaggies) at the outline edge, but running the soften tool around the edges afterwards smooths them out.

Using freehand masks is the key to clean work whichever method you use. Other methods are cloning and using the colour replacer tool, I prefer the method I've described for quickness.

Hope that helps. I forgot to say how great it is to see youngsters involved in music like that. :cool:

[KaplanMultimedia]

I really like your final version but only as a PS exercise. Nice work. As a photo I like the original. She is a part of a larger group and the first image shows it.

My thoughts exactly.