Adding DOF in Photoshop

[lerabu]

Hi all!

I went shooting on the local marketplace this weekend following some of the tips that were given for candid street photography here on DPS.

It was a cloudy day. I was shooting from the hip mainly so as to get shot as candid as possible.

My settings were: Aperture priority mode, ISO 200, f3.5 - lowest possible for my lens.

I got the shot below with an action of exchange of goods which I though would be great to show but I felt it had too much depth of filed and lacked pop.

Photograph after reframing and colour correction in Lightroom. I added vibrance and saturation, adjusted levels and curves and added some luminance to the main colours in the shot.



So to add pop to the whole image I selected with a magnet lasso the section of the image that I wanted to emphasise and then I copied it into a new layer and I blurred the background layer.

I then proceeded to erase parts of the in focus layer that copied bad elements during the lasso selection. I copied some areas with the stamp tool and got rid of excess blur from the background with some stamp cloning.

Here is the result:



How do you like to overall effect of the changes? Does the photograph have more pop and were the right areas selected to be kept in focus?

This is my first time doing this in PS, I am looking forward to learn!

[curelightwounds]

Good job. I like the end result.

My only critique is that the green onions on the left are still out of focus, I would crop them out a little to take attention away from them.

[lerabu]

Hi!

Thanks for the comments!

Yes you are right, they are out of focus, it was like that with the shot out of camera.

Would you try to fully delete them? Or just make them part of the background too? For that I think I would need to clone the arm a little to hide them behind it.

Do you have any advice on how to go about it?

[curelightwounds]

It's hard to say... the hand on the left is a must.

Cloning the arm would be quite a tall order.

I can't see a way to crop the onions completely out without losing too much.

Hrmm... here's what I would do:
Crop the photo until the exchange is the bottom left intersection of the rule of thirds lines, or you could crop until it's in the center

I think the most helpful thing would be to lightly vignette the photo to pull eyes away from the edges and onion and more towards the exchange

[lerabu]

The vignette isn't a bad idea at all!

I will try both things. Blurring to the rule of thirds line isn't bad either Thanks for the advice!

[milosh]

I think the fake added dof looks pretty real and it does make quite a change, it makes the exchange of goods a prime subject, without the background interfering. Maybe you can crop out the onions on the left and not make it look weird, give it a try...

[NgaiHill]

I like what you've done here, its definitely improved the shot. Although as mentioned above there is a bit of OOF with the onions on the left. When I looked at the first photo it bothered me that the onions partly obscured the man's face but by creating DOF that no longer becomes a factor. Well done And thanks for sharing your process.

[lputman]

I am not bothered by the OOF onions. They are obscured enough and lead you right to the hands.

[lerabu]

Hi all!

Thank you for the comments! The onions seem to be the main culprits! I was a bit busy with work lately working 15 hour days so I didn't have the time to tinker in PS

I will try to resolve this onion issue and see what I can do!

Thank you for taking the time to comment!

Also, a friend who is a designer also told me I should dampen some highlights that are in the new "in focus" area that come from the parts the the shot that became OOF after processing. He said to use a Hamilton, or something like that

Thanks!