Wanting opinions here please

[1STLITE]

I am doing this as a gift for a friend of mine for her wedding. They want a 5x7 pic and are going to put a wide matt around it that the wedding guests will sign and they will later frame. She said she was using gerber daisies for her flowers but not sure what colors so I used a pic of a Gerber to make a brush to make the background. I am not really aiming to make it look as though the background were really there, but would love to know how I could do that. I know there are a few selection issues on the right side - the back of his shirt, but other than that - anything you guys see needs fixing?

Thanks -

Dawn

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Dawn, I've added a drop shadow to help the couple sit into the background. Not sure it improves it, but thought I'd throw it in as a suggestion.

[1STLITE]

YES! lol I think that is exactly what it was missing. Thank you. Could I get a step by step? Please?

Dawn

[Duv]

I noticed a halo around the skirt and pant section. Probably remnants of the extraction. Also, I like the girls complexion but wonder if the man might find his skin a little too smooth and perfect. Just a thought.

Cheers
Dave

[Ed_L]

Well, I was going to say exactly what Duv said. Overall, nice work though.

Ed

[Mike]

I think (at least on my monitor) that the whites of their eyes and their teeth are too brite. To me the rest of their faces are kind of low contrast, then the whites are almost blowen out.

I say this from experiance, it is really easy to go to far when doing eyes and teeth.

Mike

[Ed_L]

Originally Posted by Mike

I say this from experiance, it is really easy to go to far when doing eyes and teeth.
Mike

I absolutely agree with that statement. Very easy to overdo it. But they didn't look bad on my monitor, so I downloaded the picture so I could check the numbers. The eyes appear very acceptable to me, while the teeth are brighter, but still OK. I think the brightest reading I found was around 243 or so. That's pretty bright, but not blown out (but very white teeth). The white shirt might have had a 255 reading in a place or two, but not overall.

Ed

[1STLITE]

Thanks for all your comments. I agree about the teeth but wondered if it was just me really - hence the post - lol. But I was pretty happy witht he eyes. I used the diffuse glow filter on this image, and have never really used that before, only played with it. She liked the soft look of it that it had before the glow was added, so I will just have to wait and see what she thinks now. Again, I appreciate all your comments. Beginnig to think I should post stuff more often.

One more question - whats the best drop shadow tutorial around? And do you think it adds enough to the pic to mess with it. I like it with the shadow, seems to make it kinda pop more, but I like it too without so what's ya'lls opinion here?

Dawn

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Dawn, Sorry I'm a bit late coming back to your request for info. Guess it's down to the time difference thing.

To create the drop shadow I did the following.

Select figures and copy to new layer. (You've probably already got them on a seperate layer, in which case its even easier.)

Copy Figure Layer. (You should now have 3 layers, Background, Figure, Figure Copy.)

Select middle layer and colour figures black using Paint Bucket.

Blur now black figures with Gaussian Blur, (I used a radius of about 8 pix, but blur to your own taste.)

Reduce layer opacity. (I usually find about 35% works.)

Distort and move shadow using Free Transform tool.

Hope this helps.

[1STLITE]

Thanks Gary. No apology necessary, I don't expect you just sit there waiting for me to ask a question - lol. But I figured it out last night. I feel so stupid I have been meaning to ask about layer masks, how you can make a selectoin based on that. I cannot tel you the number of times I have forgotten to save a selectoin I used in a mask, and I just last night figured out how to do that. So I used the mask on one layer to make the selection and filled that with black using the fill command, basicly what you just said. Blurred and reduced and all that. I was very happy with it. Will go back in a min and get it ready to post here so you all can see my final. I also reduced that glow a good bit, and masked some of it on his face and shirt. Her mom came a picked it up this morning, and I will hear from her in a bit - may add text with wedding date or something like that.

Thanks again for all you guys' help!

Dawn

[1STLITE]

Here are the two finished versions. Played with his pants - we talked about trying to make them tan, but it did not really work out, so I tried black instead. Dunno yet which she is going to like best. I liked both versions, but really thought the blue pants was prettier - lol. Anyways, here they are.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Dawn, Glad I could be of help, really nice job you've done. I think I prefer the dark trousers, they don't draw your eye from the central focus of the picture as much as the blue ones do. But the end user is always the final judge. She should be pleased with both.

[Ed_L]

Super job Dawn! Like Gary, I'd go with the darker pants, but it's what she wants that really counts.

By the way, I checked your profile. Are you anywhere near Tupelo? We have friends there.

Ed

[1STLITE]

Thanks ya'll. Yeah, she ended up going with the dark ones. They all loved the pic. Thank you all again - coudl not have done it without ya'll.

I am a couple hours from Tupelo, I think. About 35 miles north of Jackson.

Dawn

[imrtun]

Nice job removing the clutter from his jeans, but for my taste you have smoothed everything a little too much, for example there is no texture to the jeans now. Maybe you could try applying the smoothing to a new layer and erasing parts of it to make the detail come back through.

It just looks a little odd to me, but I like everything else and think you chose a nice backdrop.

[Legacy~Art]

Love the picture and the idea, but i have to agree the man looks too pretty...not manly...his skin looks too perfectly like a babys

Could you reduce the smoothing on the guy and make him have more of a manly complexion, this i have to say is probably one of the hardest things to do, we see lots of challenges on womens faces but none on mens...