Help with background

[Connie Mier]

I posted this photo here hoping that I could get some specific advice on how to fix it. I really like the bird (fish crow?) with the puffer fish in its mouth, something I have never seen before or thought I ever would. Because of this, I think its a photo worth keeping, but the background doesn't do it any justice.

What would you do to make the bird and the puffer fish more distinguishable? I do have CS4. I have not worked with it enough to understand the use of layers but it is my understanding that I can separate the background from the bird and work specifically with the background.
Thank you.
Connie

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Hi Connie, what if you did a surface blur on the BG and tried sharpening the blowfish.

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

I'm not an expert in Photoshop but here is my take. I lighten the body a bit to bring out more details in the black. Then I desaturate and Gussian blur the background. I used both combination of layer and mask to do this. You probably already know about layers, mask help to selectively adjust part of the image (like the body, background, etc). Others will probably do a better job than mine and will love to hear what other ways to do this as well.



You captured a nice details in the blacks, espectually the head. Good head angle and nice eye contact, the puffer fish add big time. I also like that you get the top side view of the puffer fish, not the bottom. The background maybe a bit busy, but it does show the environment that the bird is in.

Oh, want to hear about your techs as well, what aparture and shutter speed?

[Desmond Chan]

I posted this photo here hoping that I could get some specific advice on how to fix it. [snip] I think its a photo worth keeping, but the background doesn't do it any justice.

You could try blurring the background to begin with. However, it is not that simple. To get the best result, you need to make GOOD selection and using different layers. The way I know of is to basically blur one of the layers and put the other with the sharp, clear bird on top. I'll let the expert handle that one :)

What I've done here is to crop the background - as you know it's far from ideal and so no point in showing so much of it - darkened it and cloned out the bright spots. I also brighten the shadows of the crow a bit to show more details of the crow. Still, some shadow areas are clipped with no details. Nothing you can do no matter what to get anything out of it. Anyhow, perhaps you can then blur the background a bit from here.

There you have it; one option out of many :)

[Connie Mier]

OK, good suggestions and thanks for the reposts! I like the cropped version BTW, Desmond and thought of that as soon as I posted the original.

Thanaboon, this was shot at f7.1, 1/400 at 420mm (300mm w/ 1.4XTC) on a sony a700. I believe it was ISO 200.
Connie

[Alfred Forns]

Great repost Desmond !!!! Love toning down the bg and making the bird larger in frame to show off the action !!!! Did also well opening shadows without introducing much noise !!! Good !!!!!!!

Connie with these unusual images you should always try to go for a head shot, might not be possible but after making a few good one like you did go for the gusto !!! Big Congrats !!!

[Ian McHenry]

Hi Connie
This is a neat character image and even better with reposts.
As someone else who is less than comfortable with BG noise reduction I would like to encourage your perseverance in this area as it does make a big difference.
Hopefully one of our BPN experts can give you a step by step workflow for CS4 background noise reduction and sharpening of main feature.
Cheers: Ian Mc

[Lance Peters]

Hi Connie - desmonds repost works for me - love the action. Techs pretty much covered above as far as NR goes I am sure there are some threads in the educational resources forum on noise reduction. Lots of different ways to do it with lots of different tools - really isn't that hard - main thing is to do it only on the BG and not your subject.

Looing forward to seeing more :)

[Ákos Lumnitzer]

Repost id great by Desmond. There is a little smudge to the right of the bird about the height of its breast. You can notice clearly. Otherwise I would remove one catchlight. Congrats!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Connie,
I like the image and capture...Desmond's repost puts this over the top...looking forward to your next one...:cool: