Comments on: Quick Fix for Cluttered Backgrounds

By: nitpicker

nitpicker — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:45:48 +0000

Your brother is Peter Coyote?

By: Tiernans Photography Blog » Blog Archive » quick fix for Cluttered Backgrouds

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:56:38 +0000

[...] article over at PhotoDoto talks about, and shows you how to make your photo backgrounds less cluttered. Its a very nice piece and has both before and after shots, which allow you to see what has [...]

By: Michael Garmahis

Michael Garmahis — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:24:35 +0000

Just select background and apply slight Lens blur filter.

By: Ed Krimen

Ed Krimen — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 03:10:12 +0000

In my opinion, here’s a much better version of the photo. If I had the original file, the photo would have been larger. This edit took me a few seconds to do in Picnik.com.

http://www.photobird.com/ekrimen/test/the-grin.jpg

Also, in the original blog post above, in the second photo, he looks sunburn.

By: links for 2008-01-08 « toonz

links for 2008-01-08 « toonz — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:19:47 +0000

[...] Quick Fix for Cluttered Backgrounds | Photodoto (tags: photography background photoshop) [...]

By: Brad Huntsman

Brad Huntsman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:17:27 +0000

I know I commented already about having used this techneque at work (i forgot to mention it was really the first time I’d taken photos). I had gotten some great feedback on the sample photo I put up on my blog thru email asking to put a couple more examples up, so I thought I should mention it here. Here is the link [lernr.com]

By: Douglas Jenhart

Douglas Jenhart — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:22:31 +0000

This is a useful tutorial to those without an SLR camera, who can’t simply open the aperture, etc. There are a few comments I’d like to make since I’ve been doing these fixes quite a bit to get portraits of my roommates done. I think that more needed to be cropped off the left because the wires are an unnatural distraction. The rug doesn’t bother me so much because it’s an aesthetically pleasing object. Also, the sponge tool also tends to give an alien effect to its subjects. After selecting (using the pen tool or magnetic lasso) and feathering, I would have gone into the settings for the background and the foreground and fiddled with not only the saturation, but the contrast as well. This is still a quick fix and should make your portraits look more natural.

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:49:01 +0000

Nicely done & thanks for the tip. Re: the picture, I’d be tempted to crop it so there’s no desk and very little carpet, turning it round to portrait format, maybe crop a little from the bottom too. That and the blur would make for a nice portrait, imho.

By: Elizabeth West

Elizabeth West — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:30:06 +0000

I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments, but I want to add a few of my own. Yes, framing is usually part of the photographic process, but in this case I was moving around and shooting quickly. Merely opening the aperture would have blurred the background but it would not have muted the colors. Compare the red and orange pencils on the left side of both images, and compare the color of the rug in both. Also, this was a “quick” fix. I know I could have removed whatever using Photoshop, but I was working on a series and did not want to put that much time into each image.
And yes, my brother Pete does bear a remarkable resemblance to that actor ; >

By: links for 2008-01-07 « The Ubiquitous Lens

links for 2008-01-07 « The Ubiquitous Lens — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:18:45 +0000

[...] Quick Fix for Cluttered Backgrounds | Photodoto Isolate your subject after the fact. (tags: photography photoshop photoprocessing digital howto adobe) [...]