How would you separate the background in this photo?

Hi. I've been shooting semi-professionally for two years now and usually have results that get positive feedback from clients (semi-pro, at least in my head, means I have a day job that feeds the family and photography is on the side).

Anyway, a week ago I took a lot of photos of a neighbor's twins who just turned 13. Great kids.

It was my first time shooting against a black background. I'm not disappointed with the results, but obviously I should have had better separation from the background.

This file was adjusted in lightroom and then I made it both a tiff (to work on wherever) and a jpeg (to show you).

What would you do, using software, to get rid of the background (and not have any faint outlines)?

Note: If you look closely, you can see the background behind her (has a couple wrinkles). This was a quick setup in someone else's house using a portable background. Had it been at my place this wouldn't be an issue.

Thanks

In Lightroom 4, I would have used the adjustment brush and lowered the exposure on the background only. As it is already fairly black, a nicely feathered edge on a -2 EC brush wouldn't leave residual 'halos'. BTW, from my position, it looks good as is. Keep in mind that I don't get paid for this.

Got PS? Russell Brown has some excellent ones here: Russell Brown Tips & Techniques: Look for Advanced Masking

Simple levels adjustment. Open the photo in Photoshop:

"Layer"
- "New Adjustment Layer"
-- "Levels"


Move the left point to the right, and the middle point to the left. This will drop the blacks and retain the brightness of your subject. Once you have the blacks where you want, if you want to fine-tune the exposure create a duplicate layer of the original (background layer) and change the layer properties to "Screen" and use the opacity slider to raise or lower the exposure.

+1 to GeoKras' suggestion. I would use the adjustment brush in LR.

GeoKras1989 wrote in post #17114394
In Lightroom 4, I would have used the adjustment brush and lowered the exposure on the background only. As it is already fairly black, a nicely feathered edge on a -2 EC brush wouldn't leave residual 'halos'. BTW, from my position, it looks good as is. Keep in mind that I don't get paid for this.

Thanks. I'll try that.

It looks correct on your monitor probably, but that doesn't mean it's right. My neighbor had a monitor that was too bright and the contrast was set very low. It exposed the flaws in the photos. Even though their monitor was a mess, the flaws in the photos were still real.

EOS-Mike wrote in post #17114374
What would you do, using software, to get rid of the background (and not have any faint outlines)?

I might try to further blur any 'detail' in the background simply by using a Magic Wand to trace around the subjects, Invert the Selection, then apply Gaussian Blur to the background.

You can use a mask to protect the subjects and isolate the background for selective crushing of the background to black.

When making a mask, think about channels as the starting point - in this case, in RGB, take a look at the R channel - it has the most contrast between the subjects and the background. Most skin tones are very light in the R channel - the background is neutral and very dark. This, combined with the relatively light clothing gives light subject and dark background - that is, good contrast between the subject and background.

Make a copy of the R channel and use a curves adjustment to threshold the image into black and white areas for the mask. The white areas will have islands of dark pixels in them and parts around the edge of the white area will need to be made pure white to create the mask. You can whiten light areas by painting with a brush, set to white and OVERLAY mode. You can darken dark areas by using black as the paint color. Finally, you can refine the edges of the mask using the refine edge tool.

Your subjects appear to be maybe 2/3 stop underexposed, or so. You can dupe the image, set it to screen mode to boost the exposure. On top of that layer, make a curves adjustment layer with a curve that crushes black and use the mask you made to protect the subjects while crushing the background.

You can also make a fake rim light (with fun colors!), adjust the modeling of shadow on the subjects, etc. See attached screenshot, with exaggerated adjustments - hopefully you can see how each layer affects the image.

All of these things will hopefully help separate the subjects from the background.

kirk

Cool tips. Thanks. I used a lot of brushes in Lightroom and tried to avoid the tedious photoshop stuff. They came out better the second time around.

I'll look into all the techniques you folks suggested. Thanks.

This is one of my favorites from the photo shoot. Same kid as in the above picture, but about an hour later.

http://fairbanksfamily​.smugmug.com …37p/0/X3/i-RxFZ37p-X3.jpg

There's virtually nothing in the background. If you want it to be a white background, shoot it on a white background. If you want to blend it use blend modes.

What are you trying to achieve?

Kirkt - I am trying to understand the method you mentioned but having difficulties re-creating it. Do you mind sharing the .PSD file?

kirkt wrote in post #17119203
Your subjects appear to be maybe 2/3 stop underexposed, or so. You can dupe the image, set it to screen mode to boost the exposure.

Is using a duplicate layer in screen mode to boost exposure better / different than using a brightness/contrast adjustment layer?

@siiilent - Since this is not my image, I don't want to redistribute it. I can send you the PSD without the background image in it, though.

@groundloop - I pretty much only use exposure on 32bit data, where the pixels are actually linearly related to each other. Screen is more versatile for lighting images with a gamma curve already applied. The old (classic) brightness/contrast was a mess, but the new version (as of CS6 or whatever) is very similar to screening. Screen is the opposite of multiply - the corresponding pixels in the two layers being compared are both inverted, multiplied and then inverted again. I use multiply and screen to darken and lighten, respectively, along with Blend If to limit and feather the effect. It would appear that similar effects are generated by the newer version of brightness/contrast - old habits die hard for me, I guess!

kirk

Here is a link to the PSD file without the original image (the first three layers had the background image in them).

https://www.dropbox.co​m …xp9mlb5w/PSDFil​e.psd?dl=0

kirk

tim wrote in post #17119680
There's virtually nothing in the background. If you want it to be a white background, shoot it on a white background. If you want to blend it use blend modes.

What are you trying to achieve?

I wasn't trying to achieve a white background. Rather, I wanted a pure black background. But I'm getting much closer.

Also, at home it's not even an issue as I have more control over lighting. I was in a small room without much distance between the subjects and the background. I was on location and didn't really have the time to do it as cleanly as I'd like.