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Specific questions on BG masking, newton rings, how to
Please move this if its in the wrong forum. Please excuse typos, on iPad.
i have very good background in photo and color basics, had PS experience for web building in 2002.
lots of Mac experience but now mainly on a high res pc at home with Corel paintshop pro, Lightroom, and nik color effects.
im pretty novice when it comes to post processing, I'm pretty pure too. Meaning unless you really want it to look like a painting and market it that way just don't do it.
drives me crazy here to see completely post processed painter looking images in a bird category in a contest, separate the categories please.... This is a it issue here locally.
i do fine with color, some cloning, but haven't gotten into layers.
im self taught as my father just doesn't have time and by his admission a bad teacher, yup I agree.
so I have this hummingbird shot, it just won 3rd place in the amateur animal category in our state fair, almost 100 entries in the category so I'm happy.
however the critiques I got up front and behind the scenes later from a few judges I know and respect were in reference to the BG.
needed to be more muted less splotchy, I agree, though I'm just starting to agree with this method.
father does not and told me to leave it, I didn't, I did a heavy free handed Vignette to accomplish this.
was happy until seeing it up at th fair tonight and realized I had completely missed big Newton Rings. Biggest in dark green underneath hummingbird.
so can you all tell me, how o you obtain good BG, is it always masking??
my best example is the flying owl shot just posted in Avian, gorgeous BG.
please advise on how to do this correctly.
the first is my fixed post processed entered photo....
the 2nd is the original un cropped, unedited, nothing done to BG so you can see what I did do.
thanks for any help, I have many photos that I need to work on BG and just lost at best way to go about.