Masking - too visible or not?

[milosh]

Hello everyone,

here's a photo I took from quite a distance using my zoom lens at 105 mm focal length. I then had to severely crop it to get the people to this size. When I sharpened it with unsharp mask I liked the effect on the people and the horse, but I didn't want to sharpen the ground. Then I added a blank mask to the sharpening layer and started painting with black on it to hide the ground from sharpening. I knew I need to leave some of the ground beneath them sharp (in order to get it to look like shallow dof) so I did. I tried to make the transition between sharpened and unsharpened ground as smooth as possible by using different brush sizes and settings.

Question #1: Do you think it is too obvious? Does it stand out too much? What is the proper way to do it?

Question #2: do you have any suggestions how I could further separate foreground and background from the three? I know it is the perspective that caused them to be surrounded by ground so much, but maybe you have some pp technique to help it?

Any other comments/suggestions are welcome!



Exif info:

Focal length: 105 mm
Aperture: f 8
Shutter speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Taken in raw.

[Nicole]

I think it looks good and believable. I looked at the picture before reading the description and I couldn't pick it out. Looking at it after reading it, the ground might be a little noticeable, but still! I think it looks good.

[AndrewPDX]

Damn, that's some nice work. Not noticeable at all, really. If you wanted to play around, you could try adding a bit of blur or some selective desaturation to really make the DoF effect, but I wouldn't bother. Solid as is.

[edbayani]

very nice post processing.
you can still make it more 'believable' by adding shadows of the man at right and the hooves of the horse. make it like the shadow of the man on the left.

[milosh]

Thank you for your comments. I am glad it's not noticeable so much. I think I'll try playing around to add some selective desaturation. Honestly, I didn't even notice that the man is lacking a shadow. But I don't know how to add it. Thanks once again!