First attempt at Portrait work.

I usually do landscape type stuff but the winter weather here has forced me to work inside.

This is a shot of my brother, cropped and with a bit of PP in blurring the background.

C&C welcomed and appreciated.

Cheers!

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the best way (i've found) to fake blur the background it to first cut the subject out with the pen tool, blur the background , then paste the subject back in. otherwise you end up with a ghostly blur around the subject and your subject does not "pop" out.

good luck!

I would try a different crop with this photo.. His face is dead center.. Come in a lot closer with the crop on this.. I agree with Michael here about the blur also and having a ghostly feel and no pop to it.. There seems to be a little yellow color cast also. I would like to see the sooc shot.. Really you didn't to to bad though and I would keep at it.. This winter has been hard and has caused many of us to think out of the box.. Thanks for sharing.

mkuriger wrote in post #5079779
the best way (i've found) to fake blur the background it to first cut the subject out with the pen tool, blur the background , then paste the subject back in. otherwise you end up with a ghostly blur around the subject and your subject does not "pop" out.

good luck!

For the most part, that's exactly what I did here; traced out the subject, Gaussian blurred the background. Maybe there wasn't enough light in the room to make him "pop out"?

Thanks for your feedback!

HeatherSik wrote in post #5079834
I would try a different crop with this photo.. His face is dead center.. Come in a lot closer with the crop on this.. I agree with Michael here about the blur also and having a ghostly feel and no pop to it.. There seems to be a little yellow color cast also. I would like to see the sooc shot.. Really you didn't to to bad though and I would keep at it.. This winter has been hard and has caused many of us to think out of the box.. Thanks for sharing.

I had played around with several crop variations but ended up settling on this one because of not wanting to show off too much of his facial imperfections such as the bags under his eyes.

About the yellowish color, I think this was due to the overhead ceiling light fixture in the room, which was my only source of light for the shot. The fixture itself was yellowed from age and cigarette smoke and actually looked far more yellow before processing...maybe I should go back over that again and add a bit of red tinting to his face?

Thanks for your feedback as well.

Cheers!

I opened this and immediately said 5D. Excellent light, crisp image, very well done. I might choose a different composition bringing him more to the front. And using the 50/1.4 up close wide open will give you the BG blur without photoshop.

And for photoshop blur I create a duplicate layer, blur it, erase the area you want in focus.

I say the picture looks great for the first attempt. Great Job!

Titus213 wrote in post #5080224
I opened this and immediately said 5D. Excellent light, crisp image, very well done. I might choose a different composition bringing him more to the front. And using the 50/1.4 up close wide open will give you the BG blur without photoshop.

And for photoshop blur I create a duplicate layer, blur it, erase the area you want in focus.

I used an f2.2 setting on my 50mm lens for this shot as most of my earlier experimentation with this lens pointed me away from using it wide open as at 1.4, the focus area gets really small so I rationed that at 2.2 I'd have a bit more area to work with afterward for blurring back to a desired level.

Thanks for your kind words about the rest of it. Much appreciated.

blacktib22590 wrote in post #5080246
I say the picture looks great for the first attempt. Great Job!

Thanks. I thought so too!

Cheers!

I think it makes a statement. fine shot.

Daddy wrote in post #5081202
I think it makes a statement. fine shot.

Thanks!

Cheers!

The Ghost of FM wrote in post #5080181
For the most part, that's exactly what I did here; traced out the subject, Gaussian blurred the background. Maybe there wasn't enough light in the room to make him "pop out"?

Thanks for your feedback!

I had played around with several crop variations but ended up settling on this one because of not wanting to show off too much of his facial imperfections such as the bags under his eyes.

About the yellowish color, I think this was due to the overhead ceiling light fixture in the room, which was my only source of light for the shot. The fixture itself was yellowed from age and cigarette smoke and actually looked far more yellow before processing...maybe I should go back over that again and add a bit of red tinting to his face?

Thanks for your feedback as well.

Cheers!

I like the facial imperfections. He has a lot of character. It's nice to see subjects that look like the rest of us. Beautiful people get too much coverage

I like it.