Does this look good?

*palmor* · 06-22-2009, 06:43 AM

Hi everyone,
At the agility trial I was at last weekend I was asked to take a photo of a competitor that did very well at the previous weeks national trials. They bought her a cake ect to celebrate. I wasn't there any any official capacity and didn't know that this was planned or I would have taken my good flash to fill in. Anyway they wanted the photo on the dog walk which wasn't my 1st choice because of the very distracting background but it wasn't me to decide

Anyway after I got home and looked at the photo I wanted to try to get rid of as much of the background as possible, especially the guy spread eagle in his chair LOL. I was wondering if I cold get some opinions on how this looks. I think I may send them both version and let them decide which they like better but I still want the processed one to look as natural as possible.

oh, yes the lighting was terrible, the sky was awful.. almost the worst conditions to take a photo like this and only about 30s of prep time to think about it... argh

Thanks
John

Without the background edits:

With the edits:

*palmor* · 06-22-2009, 12:17 PM

eek, 44 views and nobody responded. I hope that doesn't mean it looks awful

Maybe I should have posted this in the photo section?

Thanks
John

**Peter Zack** · 06-22-2009, 12:23 PM

John I wouldn't send them the original. The edited version will work better IMO. Just watch the edges of the areas you blurred. Make sure you don't get those funny digital edges between the edited and unedited spots. Tough lighting to work with.

markdesmarais · 06-22-2009, 12:38 PM

I would-

Desaturate the orange fence
Blur the tent rooflines against the sky
Soften the clouds/sky a little (esp where you cloned out the wires)

Depending how much license you want to take, you could change out the whole sky for something darker/bluer to make the dog pop a little more?

*palmor* · 06-22-2009, 05:05 PM

Thanks for the feed back! I made some changes and did a test print at home and it looks pretty good IMO

I'm not the most advanced Photoshoper!

Thanks
John

GnusMas · 06-22-2009, 05:47 PM

I'm gonna have to agree with Mark. I would desiderate the fence then if you really want to spend some time on Photoshop I would give the background more bokeh. If you have Alien bokeh then you are set. If not you could use photoshop's blurs. Also it may be this crappy laptop monitor but the image could use some brightening maybe a 1/3 to 1/2 stop. It is unfortunate that they did not setup a proper podium with a good neutral backdrop. Maybe suggest that to them for their next event. (Could be angle for you to provide professional images for them at the next event if that is something you want to do) Anyways, nice work under weak conditions.

Cheers

AC