Fun with Tilt Shift

[mrz3r0]

This is the first time I have shared my work with hopes of getting comments, critique, and questions.

My favorite subject to shoot, is my soon to be wife. She had an idea for a shoot that involved an umbrella in the middle of the woods. I wasn't really into it, but I found a birdhouse in a tree off the path we were walking down and was compelled to use it somehow. I took several images of her and the birdhouse. This one in particular I opted to do Tilt Shift to the image to focus more attention on the birdhouse.

Began with:


Finished product:


I used Lightroom at first and made several passes over the image to get some color. I had already done several images doing this but really wanted to highlight the birdhouse so I just desaturated the hell out of the image. Then I did a few passes to make a vibrant image as well just bumping up the curves and colors.

Popped the images into Photoshop and used the two layers. One layer was the B&W image and the bottom layer I bumped up saturation of the colors as much as I could. I then just erased out the portions of the top layer to highlight the color of the birdhouse. The birdhouse was blue obviously, but not as vibrant as the final result.

I felt that the birdhouse was still not getting enough attention so I went ahead and did a Tilt Shift to the image, and then played with saturation a bit more and the curves to bring out a bit more contrast in the image. I also like to do a border around my images to give them a start and stop point.

I am happy with the end result.

This is from a series of images I did called "Little Bad" series, and can be seen on my site: http://www.devianttheater.com/?p=188

I have only had it up for about 20 days so I am still upping material.

Any questions or comments, and especially critique, I am more than welcome, and wanting, to hear.

[AgBeard]

I really like that as an image - very creative

[Digidave]

Originally Posted by AgBeard

I really like that as an image - very creative

I agree. Well done. It centralizes your focus to the main subject.

[rediguana]

And here I was thinking you were going to post some actual photos with a tilt shift lens. Perhaps the thread should be called 'Fun with Photoshop'

[Dirt_Bike_Ryda]

what are tilt shift lenses exactly ?


dunno worry. i googled it... wow.. now we're getting technical with these puppies

[areeffbee]

MKayy, so this is amazing. I love what you've done with it, & I really like her boots! I wonder if they make them in my size...?

Anyway fantastic photo to begin with. Then whatcha've done with it was so creative! Nice, nice.

[mrz3r0]

Originally Posted by areeffbee

I really like her boots! I wonder if they make them in my size...?

I am sure they do. They are 'Uggs'

[myang07]

Love it. Only thing I suggest is soften up the shadows on her legs where it's focused it. Otherwise great stuff.

[Derek Bell]

It looks great. How did you darken the corners? I love that merge into the border.

Derek

[mrz3r0]

Originally Posted by Derek Bell

It looks great. How did you darken the corners? I love that merge into the border.

Derek

I just used the vignette settings in Lightroom for the darkening. I used to do it in Photoshop using Lens Correction but I felt it gave it a very unnatural look. Lightroom just has more subtlety and more accuracy with it I feel.