What to do with the background?

[Cryspatus]

I'm retouching a bridal photo with a cement background. I don't know whether I should remove it entirely, or remove the outlines of the bricks, or just try to make it look cleaner. Any suggestions?

http://i33.tinypic.com/2w6rjp1.jpg

[Ziaphra]

I like them...gives it texture.

[SilvaFox]

The bricks aren't bugging me. But if you feel the need to do something with it, replace is with a fake bkgd.

Flat screen tint or gradient, then noise, then filled with color, sharpened, embossed and blurred slightly. It will look like sandstone without the pattern.

Then you can go to work on getting the bricks out of her vail. Ouch.

Come to think of it. I LOVE the bricks!

[TommyO]

I prefer to lighten the lines some... something simple like painting over them with a sample from adjacent brick in lighten blend mode.
I think the bride & groom may remember the building and its structure. Hence, not as big a deal to them. But, simply diminish the distraction some... keeping focus on the bride.

[Cryspatus]

I think that's what I'll do, i'll just clean it up a little. Thanks

[Ellen LeRoy]

I like it the way it is, but if you wanted to remove the lines, I would use your brush on the luminosity mode at about 10-20%, and sample a lighter area in the bricks. Then paint over the whole wall and the lines will lighten.

[Swampy]

I used Quickmask mode with a soft spattery at various opacities to select the bride, veil and column. I touched up the mask to bring 100% detail back in selected areas. Applied a big blur to the mask and added a tan layer below for the background (vignette kind of look). I it lessens the white background, but still leaves the column.

[tom60634]

I used on0ne's focal point program to de-emphasize most of the harsher textures, which I found competing with the lovely bride's features and outfit. I could have smoothed it out even more, but that seemed to destroy any sense of location.

your photo is very nice and does justice to a very appealing model. thanks for sharing.

[pixelzombie]

i'd say just blur the background slightly...

[Daviskw]

Or go the opposite way and emphasize the stone grain.

Butch

[Elkhornsun]

I believe the problem is not with the bricks but with the veil which is underexposed. Select the veil and boost the brightness while slightly decreasing the contrast and set the lasso set the feathering at about 30.

With the image as it is the veil is not sufficiently brighter (or the bride's dress) than the wall and the viewer's eye is drawn to light areas which should be the face, veil, dress.

It the wall is a really a concern then select it with a lasso and do a slight Gaussian blur on a separate duplicate layer and adjust the opacity until it is "right".

[Elkhornsun]

Side note - if you set the black point and adjust levels first and then up the EV so the dress is truly white (and not off-white as in your image) you will have a much better starting point for any other adjustments to the image.