Summer Boy - 2

I'm VERY new to photography and PS7. I have a few pictures that could really benefit from having the background completely removed, but I'm having a hard time with the detail work...Do you mind sharing your "Blackout" techniques? Thank you...

Love it! Beautiful capture.

Tracy: glad to help out. Shoot me an e-mail at jorsak@pdq.net and I'll detail it for you.

 

Vicki: Many thanks. :-) Especially for taking the time to comment.

Beautiful portrait. Great Photoshop work.

Many thanks! :-)

Great post-processing on this shot. It is fantastic in b&w, but not as good in color. Cute!

Thank you Kim. I tend to agree. It's funny that the REALLY bad background is what inspired me to try and improve it and as it turns out I like it LOTS more this way. Thanks for stopping in.

I love Summer Boy!

Beautiful b/w conversion. I wish I could do the black-out as well as you have done. Any pointers?

Again, outstanding shot!

J

Thanks Janis! No great advice on doing other than a LOT of Patience. I just use photoshop and a lot of intricate outlining.

Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. The sun was kind that day for sure.

Great shot!A photo for life.

EXCELLENT!!!Best regards.

Wow. Although you shot this on Humble Street, you should be really proud of it. Great capture and PS work.

Photoshopping out the background was probably a good choice because, yeah, I agree that the original background was ugly. However, without *a* background of some kind, it really doesn't convey anything "summery." I can see why you felt like you needed to supply the title so that the viewer can interpolate a background, but I also agree that it isn't/shouldn't be necessary. You got a great pose that seemed Summer-y to you, but not in a particularly photogenic context, and that is always very painful, so you did the next best thing. But I would drop the title... I mean this could also be called "Bath time," "Bed Time," "Gettin' Dressed" or just about anything that would fit with his fiddling with his clothes. I would remove any seasonal reference (or anything that depends on the context) and name it "Jeremy" (Or whatever the child's name is :) ) and make it about him, not the non-existent background.

 

Nice capture, that's a great moment. I remember being very young and being fascinated with the clasps on my overalls :)

I like the shot a lot the composition as well as the colors or tones more so since its b&W are great the only thing i have to say is in the cropping it is very good don't get me wrong and I'm not sure how your do your cropping since there are a number of ways to do it but if you softened the edge of it just a tiny bit i think it might be that much better cause it looks cropped to my eye, especially around the back edge of his head but fantastic job on the hair hair like that is a pain to crop no matter how you do it. If you have any questions about what i mean shoot em over ill try to answer if i can. Other then that Great Job Keep it up

 

-Mike

WOW! Several new comments all on the 21st. I wonder what happened on that day to garner the new attention. :-)

 

Thank you so much for the comments guys.

 

Funny how because I knew the setting it never occured to me that this wasn't a summery shot. lol. Without a background I definitely can see some confusion on the title. Although, few things say summer to me more than bare skin with overalls on (and trying to take them off on top of that! LOL!)

 

Good catch. I will have to consider that. I think this shot has been "Summer Boy" for so long in my head it would be hard to change the title. lol.

 

About the cropping, I use photoshop and yeah... the back of the head is a bit rough. I do typically try to use softening when cropping but I'm not sure what my process was on that. I might have to go back and give it another go cause now that you pointed that out it does look a little rough to me.

 

thanks so much for taking the time to comment!