Surprise

[steketee]

Before:


After


Some Background:

My wife. Morning time. On vacation in England.

Post Production:

Ok. The first thing I did was to crop out the right third of the photo because it wasn't important to the shot. This also made the photo compliant with the rule of thirds.

Second: I sharpened some of the edges using photoshop's smart sharpen tool.

third: Created a duplicate layer set to multiply and added a gaussian blur over the whole thing.

fourth: on the original layer I used the selective color tool to increase the saturation and vibrancy of the blues and reds.

fifth: Added a masking layer over her face and body to bring her back in focus.

Lastly flattened the image.

I'm sure I missed some steps in there, but the most important part is the layering, multiplication, gaussian blur and masking.

Thanks,

Steketee
Visit my Flickr page

[msafiedin]

i like the technique
so with photoshop
you can adjust the DOF

[googlit]

nice look. you've improved a good shot.

I would take some of the red out of her skin... she looks a little sun-burned. aside from that, I like it.

[steketee]

Originally Posted by msafiedin

i like the technique
so with photoshop
you can adjust the DOF

Yes you can by layering and adding a blur effect. There's a ton of different effects you can do, but I tend to use a gaussian blur. In any case, in order to blur some things and focus others you need to first duplicate the layer and then mask out what you want to keep in focus.

[steketee]

Originally Posted by googlit

nice look. you've improved a good shot.

I would take some of the red out of her skin... she looks a little sun-burned. aside from that, I like it.

Thanks for the comment googlit. She does look sun-burned doesn't she. I'll work on that I think. Thanks again for the comment. Love your work btw