My best friend's wedding

[gabrielle7]

Hello,

This weekend I attended my best friend's wedding. Although I'm not a professional photographer, I couldn't help not to grab my little camera and shoot a couple of photos.
Here is one of them, along with the post production. Although I like both, I'm not quite pleased with them, so any suggestion is more than welcome.



What I did:

1. cropped the image
2. duplicated the background layer
3. using the magnetic lasso tool, selected the flowers, expanded the selection by 5 pixels and saved the selection.
4. applied a Gaussian blur (7px I think), made a layer mask, which I set to hide all
5. loaded the selection and filled it with white (which reveals the sharp flowers)
5. using a big soft brush, with low opacity, I painted a little bit other areas that I wanted to reveal (the hands) so that the transition from sharp to blurry is not so harsh.

Gabrielle

[jbm1991]

I like what you did there

Would it be possible for you to post the original, or a larger size, so myself and others could have a pop at editing it? Then if you like what we come up with we'll tell you how to do it

[ericw]

I don't like the crop. You have her chin and some guys arm in it which makes it look busy and haphazard. As you've made the bouquet the subject, I'd try cropping the image to the lower left corner (get rid of the guys arm and have the top of the image slightly above her pendent, maybe take a bit off the bottom). You'll still have the veil so we know what's going on. I think then the blur might look ok, right now I'm just reacting to the overall thing and not finding it pleasing.

[gabrielle7]

It makes perfect sense what you say, I already have a crop with only the bouquet.
The problem is, I want to have an image, which focuses on the bouquet, but also tells the story. Isn't this possible somehow?

[jbm1991]

Originally Posted by gabrielle7

It makes perfect sense what you say, I already have a crop with only the bouquet.
The problem is, I want to have an image, which focuses on the bouquet, but also tells the story. Isn't this possible somehow?

It is indeed give me 10 minutes and i'll post an edit you might like and if you do like it i'll obviously post instructions on how to do it

[gabrielle7]

Originally Posted by jbm1991

It is indeed give me 10 minutes and i'll post an edit you might like and if you do like it i'll obviously post instructions on how to do it

Here is the link to the original, it's the largest size I can put on picasa.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zZqE0kgJTw8/Sj...rina%20065.jpg

[jbm1991]

What about these 2?

[gabrielle7]

Originally Posted by jbm1991

What about these 2?

I like the second one. Pretty cool! Let me guess: you added a black and white layer for the outside of the bouquet?

[candleman]

just be careful with selective colour, desaturating skin with bright colours nearby can leave your bride looking like a corpse.

i like the blur to an extent and agree the crop isnt wonderful, however, i would add a "diffused glow" and see how that looks.

congrats to the happy couple.

[jbm1991]

Originally Posted by gabrielle7

I like the second one. Pretty cool! Let me guess: you added a black and white layer for the outside of the bouquet?

Close, but not quite
to make the image i:
I duplicated the layer , then used the quick mask mode to select the red part of the flowers, then i inverted the selection so that it was the red part of the flowers that were selected and deleted them from that layer, obviously they still were there on the layer beneath. On the flowerless layer i inverted the colours, changed the blend mode to "color" then dropped the opacity to 40%. Thats why, whilst looking B&W ish, its still got a touch of colour