Photoshop question.. Photo included

[Lin-z]

I did a Christmas card session for some friends this weekend. I will be shooting their wedding next year but they want something that I can't offer right now. They are interested in having their engagement session done in a studio they want the type of photo where they dress formal and one of them sits in a leather chair and the other stands behind. You know what look I am talking about. I can't do it because I dont' have a studio.

We decided to play around with the idea and see how it would look outside and see how they looked so dressed up. So they dressed up and we took "practice" pictures.

I might not be using the right words here, but I was wondering about these digital backdrops I have been hearing about. Could it be used in this image.

I was wondering if any one would like to take a stab at making this image look more "studio like". The main reason they need this image is because in their family's home their parents all have large framed portraits of all of the children's engagement. So they need one to match.

I am adding a few images so you guys can pick the best to play with.

Thanks to everyone!

http://Lindsi.smugmug.com/photos/108466686-M.jpg

http://Lindsi.smugmug.com/photos/108465693-M.jpg

http://Lindsi.smugmug.com/photos/108463900-M.jpg

[davidfig]

This environmental portraits can still work. But you need to get a plain background. Can you do this again where the background is closer to one solid color?

[DWFotos]

I'm sure others will probably have a better idea, but you can do two things I can think of off the top of my head. You can paint the background in photoshop. It shouldn't be to bad, just a little tedious. You can also just buy a cheap white or black sheet to use as a make shift backdrop for next time.

[Lin-z]

I could. I did it in this location because there was a bench they could sit on.

[JMHPhotography]

The digital backgrounds you talk about are called chromakey. You shoot the subject on an evenly lit blue or green screen and through software, you can take every pixel that has this color value and use it as a selection to paste in a digital background. To use a background as you see here for this is a fair bit more difficult. You'd have to use either the extraction tool or do some manual selection. This takes a lot of time to do it without it looking obvious even to an untrained eye. I personally HATE digital backgrounds because they almost never look right to me. Maybe I've only seen very bad ones, but the lighting always falls on a background in a certain way, and if the lighting pattern on the subject isn't consistant with the digital background... I can see it.

[Lin-z]

Well they don't want white. They want like bluesish, greyish something..

[Lin-z]

The digital backgrounds you talk about are called chromakey. You shoot the subject on an evenly lit blue or green screen and through software, you can take every pixel that has this color value and use it as a selection to paste in a digital background. To use a background as you see here for this is a fair bit more difficult. You'd have to use either the extraction tool or do some manual selection. This takes a lot of time to do it without it looking obvious even to an untrained eye. I personally HATE digital backgrounds because they almost never look right to me. Maybe I've only seen very bad ones, but the lighting always falls on a background in a certain way, and if the lighting pattern on the subject isn't consistant with the digital background... I can see it.

Really. I agree alot of the digital backgrounds I have seen do look really fake. I just thought that MAYBE it could work for this one... Thanks though

[Lin-z]

The couple is thinking about getting an artist to do an oil painting of them this way. Do you think this would be go enough? Then the artist could just paint in the background?

[D. Craig Flory]

Since the images are so small, not a lot could be done but I am posting a version to show you possiblities.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i93/DC47/108466686-MEnhanced.jpg

[DWFotos]

I personally think the pictures look nice. You can blur the background some, or even desaturate it.

Edit: like flory did. The framing helps too.

[galilee]

This is a quick chromakey extraction, it could've been done more detailed but I did it to show a quik example (took 1min for extraction)

[Lin-z]

This is good. i like it.

[Eyelikedurt]

galilee, could you provide a bit more information about this technique? i have a few shots that could benefit, but ive no idea how to do what youve done.

[JMHPhotography]

galilee: I'm guessing that the top is the after since the bottom is a nice shade of chromakey green...lol.

Eyelikedurt: It's a simple process really. You shoot your subject against an evenly lit background. The common colors are CK-Blue and CK-Green. Mainly because these shades never appear in skin and hair so it's easier to isolate. The trick is to make sure the subjects don't wear anything with the colors of your background in it. Red and yellow shades aren't used because these colors can be found in trace amounts in both hair and skin tones. Not so easy to isolate later.

Once you have your pictures, in photoshop or other editing software that uses a color based selection method... you select the color of the background and use it to pop in a new background. Shouldn't take more than a minute if that.

[ayotnoms]

First off, you have a handsome couple to work with. :)
I thought it could be done as you see here:
122601
...however, you inevitably see that the image has been knocked out from the original background. So I have to go with John (aka Forkball) on the digital backgrounds.

...to say nothing of the time involved. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Cheers!

[galilee]

Eyelikedurt: It's a simple process really. You shoot your subject against an evenly lit background. The common colors are CK-Blue and CK-Green. Mainly because these shades never appear in skin and hair so it's easier to isolate. The trick is to make sure the subjects don't wear anything with the colors of your background in it. Red and yellow shades aren't used because these colors can be found in trace amounts in both hair and skin tones. Not so easy to isolate later.

The trick is to get the background as smooth as anything, lighting it up with a very soft even constant light, and use the right software for the job. Once you get the lighting right it really is a simple process and does work very well.