Distracting Backgrounds

[nolonger]

Hi Everyone,

 

I was hoping that someone could help me with a little photoshop question. A

large amount of my photography is done at sporting evens (cricket, rugby etc),

and as such i have the problem of crowds in the background of my shot. Even

shooting at maximum apperture, they are still significantly in focus to be

distracting. If you were to read major sporting articles, many of the featured

photos will have the background either blurred, darkened or even blacked out

(see the attatched pic). I would really appreciate someone telling me how to

do this in Photoshop. Appreciate your help!

 

Thanks, Nathan<div></div>

[sergey_oboguev]

Use selection tools, e.g. Corel KnockOut.

[nolonger]

Thanks Sergey, That is what basically what i want to achieve, although i was hoping to avoid that associated $99USD tag. Is it possible to achieve the same results using photoshop or some other alternative (hopefully free!). Thanks

[emre]

If you do this professionally, you should be able to justify the investment. Another good plugin is VertusTech Fluid Mask (http://www.vertustech.com/)

[nolonger]

Thanks Emre, I can only dream of doing sports photography professionally! What a life that would be, getting paid to go to the greatest sporting events and getting to perch myself as close to the action as i dare! Unfortunately, i'm a third year Engineering Uni student and thus have very little money to my name : ) which is why i was hoping for the free alternative. I can use photoshop at either my dads work or at one of the comp. labs at uni, which was why i was hoping that it could be achieved using PS, otherwise; i'm pretty much stuck.

[lyubov_strauss]

Nathan,

I would like to help you. I am the Photoshop artist and the photographer. You should take

pictures of the players and the crowd separate. Use the mask to separate players from the

black background in Photoshop. If the background is solid black color, you can use

selection tool, and delete the black background behind the image. Next step, bring two

images together, compose, adjust lighting, and your picture is ready for print. Have you

try to shoot RAW images? You can bring the background back in RAW image very easy. If you have ant photoshop question I can help you.

[rnd]

Hi Nathan. In addition to a larger aperture, the longer the lens and the closer you are to the subject, the smaller the depth of field and the more out of focus any distracting background will be. It's always better to fix things in camera. A photoshop alternative, though, would be to make a selection of the background and apply a filter like gaussian blur or lens blur to it. You could also darken the background as in the picture that you posted. Ideally, if you know your way around photoshop, you would do this on a seperate layer and use a gradient on the layer mask to make it blend in more naturally.

[ronald_moravec1]

You can do this in Photoshop Elements, any version. $99 for PSE5 currently.

 

Select the area to save with various selection tools, delete the rest.

 

If you have a colored layer underneath, the background will go that color. Pick what you want. Black red green blue your choice.

 

You can also select the athlete, invert the selection so you have selected everything else and apply lens blur. You now have an image that looks like 300 2.8 with the background blown out.

 

You can apply gradients and patterns to the background.

 

You can keep the athlete normal brightness, and darken the background, aka flash fill.

 

Possibilities are endless all for $99.

[nolonger]

Thanks for the replies fellas. Unfortunately i shoot with a Sigma 50-500mm with all shots done at about 500mm, f/6.3 . I drool when i see the pro's with their 600mm f/2.8 with extenders, and would contemplate relieving them of it if it wasnt so illegal ; ) Anyhow, it would be impossible to select the various parts that i wanted to darken (ie, select the background parts) as there is so much in the way of complex lines etc. Seems i've struck out this time around. Thanks anyhow, really appreciated it.

[sergey_oboguev]

> Is it possible to achieve the same results using photoshop

 

Sure you can. Use magnetic lasso and then quick mask editing.

 

However KnockOut (or Extensis Mask Pro, an equivalent) will make it with less manual work and tweaking required.

[nolonger]

Thanks Sergey, that seems to be more like what i am after. I will give it a go tonight and see how i fare. Your right that a fluid masking program is the simplest, but as a student to be honest i cant afford it. I'll let you know how i go.

 

Cheers!

[dbcooper]

Here's a free way: convert the image to .bmp, open it in Paint, zoom in, paint the image edges black first (you can even use an eyedropper and go pixel-by-pixel), and work your way out to the borders. Then convert the result to .jpg or whatever. Time consuming, sure, but cheap.

[jim_g.1]

Using photo shops layer mask should give you all the tools you need to get rid of any background distractions, just create a layer mask and then paint the area of the image that you want to see the rest will remain black or purple or what ever you have on your layer mask...very basic photo shop stuff there.