Moving the background closer..

Ken Rogers · #1 09-24-2005, 01:28 PM

I always love those zoom photos you see in magazines where a distant background object (such as the moon) is enlarged to the point where it's bigger than foreground objects (such as people).

I have a customer interested in just that. He calls it "foreshortening", but I don't think that's quite the right term for it. From the original below, I have enlarged the backround mountain detail as much as I dare. However this is not quite what he wanted. What he would like is for the volcano to take up the entire image, with the foreground tower appearing small and insignificant, as if I'd taken the picture from 2 miles away with a massive zoom lens.

So it's definitely going to be a composite job, and I have plenty of pictures of both the tower and the mountains to work with. I'll get started on this and post my progress, but I would appreciate any links or examples of such work that anyone wishes to share with me.

Thanks,

Ken
PS7

Ken Rogers · #2 09-24-2005, 11:15 PM

This is my general idea. It's not finished, so please excuse the crudity of the selection. I've made a quick-and-dirty selection of the tower and dropped it over top of a mountainous background. I'm not sure how much I intend to crop yet. The final image may only show the glass cab at the top of the tower.

Ken

Kraellin · #3 09-24-2005, 11:34 PM

lookin good to me, but what's the client say? might be a good idea to check since he rejected an earlier piece.

Craig

Ken Rogers · #4 09-24-2005, 11:45 PM

I'm going to pretty it up some more before I show him anything. First, I thought I'd see what you all think of it (i.e. any obvious perspective or lighting issues...).

Here's my progress 30 minutes later...

lissie · #5 09-25-2005, 12:00 AM

Wow you are doing a great job

I took the sign out but thats the only improvement I could see needed doing

Ken Rogers · #6 09-25-2005, 09:01 AM

That looks good, I'll remove that sign. Here's my progress after 60 minutes of work. Do you think I've over-cropped? I'll give my customer some options as far as cropping goes. I am starting to run low on pixels with this degree of cropping (1485x1061 for a 5x7 print).

I've done my best with the lighting of the tower. I added some red and yellow with the Color Balance control, and I've toned down the areas with bright sunlight (you can't see them anymore). I've softened the edges of the tower with a mask and soft brush, and even ran the blur tool over the edges so it doesn't look like I'd done a scissor job. I still need to clean up the tower, as it looks a little worse for wear. The customer wants to be able to show off his work site, so I will remove the grime from the cement.

Ken

Ken Rogers · #7 09-25-2005, 01:44 PM

My customer was very pleased with these, although I don't think the lighting is quite perfect.

Ken

Kraellin · #8 09-25-2005, 01:49 PM

well, based on what little information we have on the client's wishes, i'd guess you're probably more on it with this last one.

however, your shadows appear to be wrong. the mountain pic seems to have the light coming from almost sraight back or maybe slightly back and left (our left), while the tower seems to be lit from the right back. back meaning, back where we are, not in back of the tower or mountain. the mountain also appears to be a sunset or sunrise, whereas the tower seems a more median time of day.

Craig

edit: oops. double posted here with you. when i say your last image, i mean the one where you first curtailed the tower.

Ken Rogers · #9 09-25-2005, 02:45 PM

I agree, I should have taken the pictures at the same time of day. And after giving my eyeballs a break from it, I see that the grass is an awful pale green. Oh well. For $40.00, this is what you get from me. If I was given a week's salary to do it, I'd have redone it until it was perfect.

Ken

Kraellin · #10 09-25-2005, 02:58 PM

hehe, trust me, i know the feeling

dont like the grass, go with the 2nd one

Craig

Ken Rogers · #11 10-02-2005, 06:04 PM

Sorry to drag this thread back up out of the gutter...

I re-shot the background. I left all colors and levels alone (sometimes the best photoshop technique is to just leave it alone!). I thinks this fits together better now.

Ken

Kraellin · #12 10-02-2005, 10:00 PM

ok, i hate to be the pest, but i'm still having trouble with the lighting. the foreground says the light is up and to the right. the background says not as far up and more to the left. if you look at the foothills, they are in shade. if the foreground is light up-right, the foothills wouldnt be in shade. if you lightened the cupola and tower edges more to the left it might help.

also, i'd offset the mountain to the right a bit. currently the mountain and tower are in conflict with the tower hiding the mountain.

Craig

Ken Rogers · #13 10-03-2005, 07:52 AM

Quote:

ok, i hate to be the pest

Not at all, I appreciate an honest opinion and that's why I hang out here. I can get a "That's nice, dear" any time I want. I'm going to have to develop an eye for this lighting business. Fortunately, I have several images of Mt. Baker from throughout the day, and it's just a matter of laying down the correct one as a background.

Ken

Kraellin · #14 10-03-2005, 12:41 PM

ken,

thanks. it's always a bit weird critiquing other's work. you want to point out issues, but you dont want to squash someone or someone's work either. and i can certainly appreciate the 'that's nice, dear'

i'm going to also mention something that's bugged me about this piece. it's not a 'wrong', but just something that sort of bugs me with this one. this could very well occur this way, but in this image it just sort of looks odd to me. and that is, notice the angles on the building and the angles on the mountain. they seem out of symmetry to me. the mountains look like they shld be skewed more, with the right side angled back more to match the angles on the building. you know what i'm saying here? if you pushed the right side (our right) back on the mountains while leaving the left side fixed, it would match up the symmetry of mountain to building more. it's not a 'wrong'. it could very well exist this way in a shot, but just for aesthetic reasons it might look better.

does that make sense or am i just seeing things here? feel free to critique my critique

Craig

Ken Rogers · #15 10-03-2005, 05:09 PM

Kraellin,

After noting your observation I'm starting to see the many 45-degree angles in the design of this tower. Whoever designed it must have been a physics genius...or completely mad. The left slope of Mount Baker is approximately the same angle, but the right slope sort of has a funny angle of it's own.

I could distort the mountain, but I'm afraid to tamper with what really exists. I do think you are correct that I should slide Mt. Baker over to the right just a tad and I will do that.

Kenny