Offending foot

[Britsdad]

Hi guys,
I have a problem I hope someone can help me with....The attached pic is of my cousins dog, she has asked me to remove the foot in the centre right. This is then going to be printed 600x400 mm on canvas, so it has to be convincing. I have a 7"x5" print from her that has been printed from a CD, (that I have) and the background is much darker than on the attached pic, but the offending foot is still a huge distraction. Any ideas will be welcome
Regards.....John

[rrustic]

How about making the shoe a bit darker like the attached.
I selected the sneaker, painted dark, adjusted opacity.
Not so distracting.

[Ant]

............

[Britsdad]

Yea, I tried that, but my results looked too "painted". I also tried to darken it with levels and curves, with same results....I even tried colorizine it with hue sat, same again . Have to admit though, your's looks better than mine did.
John
Edit: Ant what's that for?

[albatrosss]

My attempt. Done quickly so needs more work . May not be what you had in mind.

[Britsdad]

Ant...ah I see now, however the print is 60x40 landscape.
albatrosss...funny you should suggest that, I am just trying the same now
John

[Britsdad]

Thanks you guys...I think I've got it sorted, what do you reckon?
John

[lurch]

To my eye that pink thing (upper left) is just as much a distraction as the foot. For a big print on canvas, Ant's approach is much better. And the canvas doesn't care if you rotate it 90 degrees . . .

<C>

[Britsdad]

Thanks lurch, mmmmm got that carried away with the foot I never even noticed the "pink thing"
As for the rotation thing, you don't know my cousin,"if she wants a landscape, she gets a landscape"
Cheers.....John

[transoptic]

I dunno... since the photo is so snapshotty, why doesn't she take a different photo in her backyard or something??

[Flora]

Another possible way...

Blurred and decreased brightness of the background around the dog...

No rotation and no cropping...

[Oh_Heck]

Kinda quick and messy here, but just to show you what you could do. My personal opinion, for a portrait you need to get rid of alot of the distracting elements in the background to bring focus on your subject. That pink thing needs to go but i'm on a bit of a time constraint at the moment.

[chillin]

I pushed the foot behind the chair & left the light on the chair to further diminish visibility of the sneaker. I did not want to alter the picture too much.

[Britsdad]

Thanks all,
This is going to be the final print, I toned down the "pink thing" and the foot then blurred the background, and sharpened up the dog, and it came out like this......not too bad for a snapshotty pic
Regards, and thanks again.......John

[cainam]

Seems to me that now you have an 'offending paw' (hind leg) instead of an 'offending foot'.
You blurred the carpet, and not the paw on it. Looks very unnatural.

Compare it to Ant's, and you'll see what I mean.

[Britsdad]

Well spotted Mark.....(just testing you all )
How's this.
John

[Oh_Heck]

Personally, I think the shoe is still a big distraction and looks really artificial just dimming it like that. If you are going to dim the background like that just take the foot out entirely, fix the chair leg where the foot overlaps and make the area where the person is a single dark color.

[Britsdad]

Oh_Heck....yea I think you have a point....I am wondering if my cousin will consider a square rather than a landscape pic, even though the foot is still visible, see below.
John

[Oh_Heck]

Well, it still looks like the foot is intentionally trying to be 'hidden'. I'm curious why your cousin wants it in a landscape layout. None of the details on either side of the dog compliment the image for a portrait, which is why you see several folks crop it first thing, and dim or blur the backdrop.

The one I did earlier I took the people out entirely as well as the stool, and replaced it with a sofa blurred and darkened.

Are you nervous about taking the foot out? I'm just curious cause its in all your shots despite your cousins request to remove it.

Also...what about taking the furniture out of the scene, and just have the dog on the carpet, and have the carpet fade into a black backdrop...

Something has to be done with it to take it from a snapshot to a portrait.

[MoPulldogs]

here is another way to approach it

[Britsdad]

Oh_Heck, The landscape thing, she has got a huge wall space to fill and who am I to argue (you don't know my cousin, she's a theatre sister and all the consultants are carefull when she's around )
No I'm no nervous about "killing the foot" it's just that I like to explore all the avenues But as you say, I think it's going to have to go! however that's going to have to wait untill the weekend now cause I'm on 12 hour nights the rest of the week.
See you guys later.....John

[Britsdad]

Oh...I couldn't leave it alone
Here's the foot killed version and a square layout too, I think I'll have to try and change my cousin's mind about landscape.
Are there any comments?
Regards...John

[Oh_Heck]

I think that looks much better. You might want to have some of that carpet in focus up near the front of the dog and have the focus falloff from there. I like how you've brought the focus more towards the head by blurring the hind quarters a bit.

A landscape picture would work, if the dog was laying more at an angle, or sideways in the shot to justify having that extra visual space.

[lurch]

Much better! Now if you'd darken those light rectangles in the upper left corner . . .

[Photo678]

lol, sorry, i just couldn't help but giggle a little at the topic title...hehehe

[Britsdad]

Best one I could think of at the time
Edit....by the way, thankyou everyone for your time and effort in helping me with this project......John