Turn this photo into a Wedding Invitation...

[Bibyrox]

I ask you again to help me. I have this photo and I want to make a wedding invitation (10x15) but the photo is looking bad... I tried to remove the background using the channels selection but.. no success!
Can you please try to do a beautiful cover for the invitation? And try to explain me how to do it?! Please... it's important for me.
Thank you thank you very much!!!

[Cameraken]

Hi Biby

The photograph you have posted is not very sharp. Also it is quite difficult to make a good mask to separate the background.

I made it into a pencil sketch. This made it very easy to delete the background and then I added a bit of colour back.

If you don’t like it, that’s fine. If you do you could post in the photo based art section to get some more ideas.

Ken

[CathyH]

HI
I took a quick stab at this. If you like it I can try to give you the steps I used to do it.

Hope this helps.

cathy

[Cassidy]

On a quick cursory look without colour correction etc, rather than using a mask from one of the channels, it appeared easier to use the magic wand to select the background, then clean up the quickmask. A inversion of the mask selection and then a feather of say 3 and copy to new layer

[Tony30144]

I did this in about 10 minutes; note that there is no color corrections. Basically:
1. Extract couple from background (filter/extract)
2. Quick mask to clean up strays.
3. Select head and shoulders.
4. Run vignette.

Hope that helps.
Tony

[Duv]

I agree that it isn't a sharp image. It might be best to accentuate the soft focus, romantic side of the image. Also, perhaps a square crop might help.

Cheers
Dave

[Bibyrox]

WOW!!! I knew I can count on you!!! Great job all!!!

Cathy of course i want to know your steps, please!

Thank you very much!

Another question for you... How can I do a "heart" selection with blurred sides?

[CathyH]

Biby
I selected the couple with the magnetic lasso, applied a layers mask then went to filter/blur/gaussian and set the setting to 25. This blurs the layers mask.

Applied a hue/saturation adjustment layer, checked the colorized box. and slide the lightness down. I may have adjusted the color too.

For the edge, I took the rectangular marquee tool drew a box, not as large as the image, then I went to select/inverse and filled that selection with a color I picked out of her dress. then I applied another layer mask and did the same think as the couple. filter/blur/gaussian set to 25.

on the layer mask, I used a paint bursh with the star shape and white as the color, I painted the stars on the layer mask. then the text font=beautiful

[Kraellin]

this may be a bit much; i dont know.

Craig

[kvryland]

This is my shot at it. I used Corel PhotoPaint

After duplicating the background layer, I masked off the couple, smoothed the mask, and saved the mask as an alpha channel.
I cut the couple out of the duplicated background and deleted the rest of the that layer.
I inserted a blank layer and filled it with the pinkish fill and then applied a Gaussian blur to that layer.
I pasted two copies of the couple on top of the pink layer.
I heavily blurred the lower of these two layers.
I feathered the top layer (couple) and then applied a radial transparency to that layer.
That's it. Hope this is helpful.

Ken Ryland

[kvryland]

I see that I made at least one goof with this picture. I failed to mask the area between the girl's hair and the boy's necktie. That green-tinged area is easy to remove, so it shouldn't present a problem.

Ken Ryland

[Shalford]

Had a play around with your photo.

Stupidly I didn't make notes of what I did, but it is easily recreated in need be.
Working horrible hours at the moment so I don,t know when that would be.

Hope all goes well!!

Regards

[Duv]

Hey Craig..nothin wrong with being out there a bit. Stretching is what makes it all work in the end.

Dave
ps. I like it.

[Kraellin]

thanks duv. i think i like shalford's better, though

Craig

[Duv]

Craig, I wouldn't disagree with you.

Cheers

Dave

[Kraellin]

hehehe

Craig

[Duv]

Craig, if your response is to me, please define hehehe as I'm here to learn as well.

Cheers

Dave

[Kraellin]

duv,

yes, the response was to your 'wouldnt disagree with you' statement. i just found it an amusing way of saying 'yup, his is better'.

Craig

[Duv]

Craig........I don't mind you saying "YUP, HE'S IS BETTER!" . What I want you to annunciate is why, so maybe I can learn something from you. Also, I thought your's was pretty neat.

Cheers
Dave

[Dreamypix]

After surfing the web for ideas on wedding invitations, Here's what I came up with. They're not the most original ideas but it will give you an idea of what you can do.

Sorry for the made up info on the card but it didn't look right without it, and I wanted to give you an idea on how that would look.

Have any Q's, just ask.

~Amber~

[Duv]

Amber, Your first one is really tasty. Yummers! It's all about taking a so so image quality wise and making the most of it. Really enjoying your submissions!

Cheers
Dave

[Dreamypix]

Thanks Duv!

[Bibyrox]

Amber great idea!!!! This is what I wanted. Thank you very much... and if you have any other ideas... I'm here to learn!

Best regards,
Biby

[Dreamypix]

No prob, Biby. If I come up with anything else I will let you know. Also thought I would mention on to create that particular sepia tone I used a free plugin (a demo version or something?) from www.flamingpear.com called Melancholytron. They have some really cool ones, check it out! Glad to help.

~Amber~