[atupdate]

I have this flower shot that a friend of mine wanted a print. I really didn’t like the background, as it had some flowers that were a distraction. Here is the workflow I used to neutralize the background.

Original Image



First I made a duplicate layer of my image. Then I used the Selection Tool on the duplicate to isolate the background from the flower. Then I added a Desaturate layer for just the background. Since the items I wanted to hide were the red and yellow colors of the flowers in the background, I desaturated just the red and yellow channel. See Image Below



Now I added a Mask Layer to hide the flower. Then I added a Raster Layer and I used the flood fill tool to make the raster layer green. I then adjusted the opacity of the green layer to about 50% (adjust to taste). See Image Below



Now I added a Curves Layer of just the background and darkened the background to taste. See Image Below.



Then I unselected the background and processed my the duplicate layer I started with according to Ben’s famous workflow.

Finished work.

[IMG][/IMG]

Hope you find this helpful.

Tim

[benjikan]

I have this flower shot that a friend of mine wanted a print. I really didn’t like the background, as it had some flowers that were a distraction. Here is the workflow I used to neutralize the background.

Original Image



First I made a duplicate layer of my image. Then I used the Selection Tool on the duplicate to isolate the background from the flower. Then I added a Desaturate layer for just the background. Since the items I wanted to hide were the red and yellow colors of the flowers in the background, I desaturated just the red and yellow channel. See Image Below



Now I added a Mask Layer to hide the flower. Then I added a Raster Layer and I used the flood fill tool to make the raster layer green. I then adjusted the opacity of the green layer to about 50% (adjust to taste). See Image Below



Now I added a Curves Layer of just the background and darkened the background to taste. See Image Below.



Then I unselected the background and processed my the duplicate layer I started with according to Ben’s famous workflow.

Finished work.

[IMG][/IMG]

Hope you find this helpful.

Tim

If I may be so bold...I might have left a bit of green from the background to give it more of a perceived depth of field. But if your intention was to darken the background to enhance the dominance of the flower, you succeeded...See, an opinion is JUST an opinion...

[atupdate]

If I may be so bold...I might have left a bit of green from the background to give it more of a perceived depth of field. But if your intention was to darken the background to enhance the dominance of the flower, you succeeded...See, an opinion is JUST an opinion...

Ben,

I only desaturated the reds and yellows, not the whole background. I'll try boosting the green and blue saturation to see if the depth of field improves but I'm not sure if any improvement will be noticeable with the darkening effect I was trying to achieve.

Tim

[LaRee]

Thank you for sharing your processing technique Tim. I could see this technique coming in handy.

[wildherre]

worked on your pic a bit. I may have over sharpened a bit but I kind of like the overall look. I left the orignal bg & just blurred it a bit more & cropped it just a bit. wildherre Flickr Photo Download: 381037879_1c970ea426_ops_hf_hf

[atupdate]

worked on your pic a bit. I may have over sharpened a bit but I kind of like the overall look. I left the orignal bg & just blurred it a bit more & cropped it just a bit. wildherre Flickr Photo Download: 381037879_1c970ea426_ops_hf_hf

I think you over sharpened it quite a bit. Too much for my taste but if everyone had the same taste, it would be a pretty boring world.

Tim

[atupdate]

Thank you for sharing your processing technique Tim. I could see this technique coming in handy.

LaRee,

I'm just starting to learn the whole mask-layer relationship and I thought it might provide others some ideas on what can be done. Hope you find it helpful one day.

Tim