Rescuing an uninspiring photo

[Stryker]

Thanks, daddyoproductions. I didn't want to change the image too much, except for what I did but I see what you mean about the lines under the eyes. It is a he, my 1 year old nephew, BTW.

[Navzz]

Thanks for explaining. What I meant was that if I select an area using the Extract Filter, choose the paint tool to retain the area I need, then press ok. It cuts out the selection rather than just selecting the area to play with colours n all.
Will check that tutorial, thank you very much

Cheers
-N

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Navzz

Thanks for explaining. What I meant was that if I select an area using the Extract Filter, choose the paint tool to retain the area I need, then press ok. It cuts out the selection rather than just selecting the area to play with colours n all

What you missed is to first create a duplicate layer (Ctrl + J, if you are on a PC) of the background layer and then use the Filter on the copied layer. This will retain the selection on the copied layer, while leaving the entire original on the background layer. This way you can treat the copied layer as the selection where you can play with colours or whatever and use the original for the rest.

I fell into this trap too before I realised what I was doing wrong.

[thomasfolkeandersen]

A very nice before and after example. I definitely like how you have 'revived' this image, but I do think you have captured a lovely gaze in the first place, but the tones in your 'after' image are just beautiful.

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I do seem to see a line (halo?) along the back of the head of the subject. I once tried to use gaussian blur to make my subject stand out and found I had to be very careful not to get these 'lines'.

Apart from that detail the image does not look over-processed to me either.

Cheers...

[thomasfolkeandersen]

On second look (and viewing it large on your flickr site) it looks like the line is there right in the capture, so it might just be a chromatic aberration which can often be corrected quite easily in RAW processing software like Camera Raw or Lightroom etc.

[Stryker]

Thanks, Thomas. The halo you see around the head is probably a result of the feathered selection and blurring I did as part of the PP as I don't seem to notice it in the original image, even in the full size SOOC version. Maybe I should have selected a tighter feather, I think it was around 30 px, but I am not totally sure about that. It is certainly something I will look out for the next time I do background blurring.

[garnetgirl]

I love what you've done with this photo! In the original, I first looked at the boy, then straight to the faces in the right corner. In the 2nd image, I'm focused on his beautiful eyes!

[Stryker]

Thanks, garnetgirl. Yeah, as I have mentioned before, his eyes are simply the most captivating feature not only in this image but in several other that I have of him.