Hiw to play with shadow? Brightness? Light? Sun?

[sprucemagoo1]

If you learn to use the pen tool to trace yourself, then use that as a selection to create a mask, you will then be able to create other masks in a matter of seconds. Working like this, you can easily play with brightness, colour etc until you are happy. Then you won't have to make do with a 10 minute thing I did as an example.

Also, like I said, try to get the camera angles to match up, you cant be stood up when the camera that shot the background was next to the floor.

So the things you need to learn is:-
Using the pen tool.
Creating Layer Masks & Adjustment Layers.

These things are easily found as tutorials on YouTube.

 

[hitch160387]

Sprucemagoo thanks for the advices i Will look for tutorials and make some adjustments

 

[Tom Mann]

Of course, one can continue to have fun even after you have a decent (fake) background is in place.




T

 

[Tom Mann]

BTW, Spruce, I hate to have to disagree with you, but IMHO, your ultra sharp and ultra-smooth extraction of the subject using the pen tool makes the image look even more like an obvious composite, not less.

A real photograph would put the plane of sharpest focus on the subject's eyes with everything else (including the edge of his cutout) slightly OOF.

In addition, I also disagree with your statement that the vantage point of the camera is too low. To me, it looks like the camera is at about neck height, which is certainly not an unusual or inappropriate height.

OTOH, IMHO, what's actually wrong with many of the composites posted in this thread is the relative size of the subject vs the background. To have the subject that large relative to the background, the photographer would have had to use a wide angle lens. Unfortunately, the image of the subject looks like it was taken from around 6 feet away, with a more normal FL lens.

Finally, IMHO, the subject in your tweaked version appears to be around 2/3rds of a stop too bright. May I ask if you are using a laptop to edit? If a desktop, do you use a hardware monitor caliborator? If not, that would explain the over-bright subject.

Cheers,

Tom M

 

[sprucemagoo1]

I was on a laptop doing 10 minute chop to demonstrate using the pen rather than having rough edges. This is to make a selection for a layer mask. If it was something I was actually working on, I would rough the edges of the hair line etc, but I didn't think I would be getting graded. The lightness is easily fixed by duplicating the layer and setting to multiply.

View attachment 33296

It's my honest opinion that the edges I did are less sharp, and certainly to the one eye I can see out of, it looks more natural. I also think that to get the edges any more natural, it would only take a bit more effort than I was willing to give.

Just to reiterate, In my last post I put:-

If you learn to use the pen tool to trace yourself, then use that as a selection to create a mask, you will then be able to create other masks in a matter of seconds. Working like this, you can easily play with brightness, colour etc until you are happy. Then you won't have to make do with a 10 minute thing I did as an example.

In respect to the angles of the camera shots, you may be right. I suppose we are just going to have to disagree!

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Spruce - Man, I'm glad you posted the comparison of the edges on those two versions. As soon I saw them, I realized that I must have screwed up. I did. It turns out that I had accidentally labeled one of Barry's (BGood) versions as the original. That version had an even softer edge than yours, and my edge sharpness comparisons were to that version, not the actual original, hence my incorrect comment that your edge looked sharper than the original. Sorry!

WRT the brightness of the subject in yours, using laptops for photo editing have caused an absolutely HUGE amount of problems for people.

Because of this, at one point, I put together a bibliography of around 20 links to discussions of this topic on the web. There are several aspects to the problem. First, it's a complete crapshoot whether a given model laptop will have a screen suitable for color critical work or not, and you can't easily tell this by eye. Second, by virtue of how laptops tend to be used, laptop users typically vary their angle with respect to the screen from moment to moment, and they tend to edit in various environments, some bright, some dark, some with neutral colors in the background, others not. Third, even if a person uses a hardware calibrator on a laptop, while the color fidelity of the display is almost always improved, most low end calibrator software doesn't give the user the final rms delta(E) number (ie, accuracy) that it achieved, so the user never knows how much the display was actually improved by the calibration process. It can be surprisingly little.

Although it can sometimes be very inconvenient, when I'm on the road, I force myself tosit on my hands when I'm asked / tempted to tweak a photo for someone. I certainly do use my laptop for backup storage, and for culling the shots based on compositional and focus issues, but never attempt to use it for any adjustments that might later embarrass me. ;-)


Cheers,

Tom

 

[sprucemagoo1]

The brightness of the subject is only so because I wanted to show that once you had a decent selection, you can then make adjustment layers really easy. I then said to the opp that they can get the dude to correct colour and brightness by doing it them-self. I did not, I repeat, did not, try in any way to match brightness colour tone or anything else, in exactly the same way you did not try and match the direction of light in the background you used.

There may be some deviation from what the colours are meant to be and the colours that are shown on my screen, but I have never had an issue with it.

Not for the first time this week, I am befuddled with the responses I am getting to my posts. The opp seemed happy at least.

 

[Tom Mann]

1) re: "...The brightness of the subject is only so because I wanted to show that once you had a decent selection, you can then make adjustment layers really easy. I then said to the opp that they can get the dude to correct colour and brightness by doing it them-self. I did not, I repeat, did not, try in any way to match brightness colour tone or anything else,..."

Hi Spruce - Am I correct to interpret the above statement as meaning that you intentionally increased the brightness of the subject by a substantial amount ( 2/3rd of a stop, or more), just to force the OP to (learn how to) bring it back to a more normal brightness? As it stands, the subject looks dreadfully overexposed - just look at your own comparison image pair to see how much you whitened it relative to the reasonably exposed original.

I'm sorry to say this, but it looks like a serious technical error, not something someone would ever do intentionally. Even the OP commented on how white he looked in your version. If you think my take on this is in error, you should try to solicit the impression of other PSG-ers whose opinions you trust.


2. re: "... in exactly the same way you did not try and match the direction of light in the background you used. ..."

I most certainly did NOT want to match the direction of the light shown in the background. If I had done so, the subject (and his face) would have been completely in shadow. It was never my intention to do that.

As I stated, I wanted to simulate the effect of an typical pro (or knowledgeable amateur) sunset photo in which an off-camera flash slightly to the right and above the camera was used.

Just for fun, here are a few links that illustrate balancing a strobe (or two) near the camera with a sunset sky in the background. Note that the first three are from Nikon official (or semi-official) websites:

http://www.nikonians.org/dcfp/user_files/224905.jpg
http://cdn-4.nikon-cdn.com/en_INC/I...25446-Nikon-D90/Photography/25446_D90_ER2.jpg
http://cdn-4.nikon-cdn.com/en_INC/IMG/Assets/Digital-SLR/2010/25468-Nikon-D7000/Photography/iTTL.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2802/4108487724_74816a0743_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4053/4643777545_9cbede723b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2397/2259082128_ec7d04877f.jpg
http://www.thesmokingcamera.com/img/v4/p20378805-5.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/IeraseU/Photos/DSC_8334_After.jpg


Cheers,

Tom

 

[hitch160387]

I'm so impressed by your knowledge guys, i'm reading every single post and i'm learning a lot. Thank you for that