Black and white portrait

joolsveer

I took this shot of my father in law about a month ago and have been playing around with it to see if I could come up with an acceptable monochrome print. I tried to blur out the background but have not quite succeeded. What do you think of the shot so far?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/joolsveer/sets/72157594146407046/

Fajitas!

It's a great portrait, apart from the background, as you already mentioned! I think rather than blurring the background out to that extent, would you be better burning it a bit?

Fionn

very nice as others have commented
well done

the blur is way too much
what kind of blur tool did you use?

if you get the selection accurate then use the lens blur and in the iris section maybe a radius in the 30's area and fiddle with the blade curvature and rotation
go for a uniform distribution instead of gaussian less noise

one little trick where the border of the blur is too obvious is to zoom in big and use a 2 pixel blur tool and even out the pixelsbetween the focused area and blurred area

thats what i do anyway, you can do this using different layers too

melekalikimaka

Fionn wrote:

if you get the selection accurate then use the lens blur and in the iris section maybe a radius in the 30's area and fiddle with the blade curvature and rotation
go for a uniform distribution instead of gaussian less noise

one little trick where the border of the blur is too obvious is to zoom in big and use a 2 pixel blur tool and even out the pixelsbetween the focused area and blurred area

thats what i do anyway, you can do this using different layers too

wow very detailed.

i like it but as they said, the edges round the subject are quite distracting, lovely detail in the face tho, wrinkles are a real test for portraits i bet

joolsveer

Thanks lads for the advice. I will have another shot at it now.

Valentia

I agree with what's been said. I think it's a very good portrait though. The man's charachter comes across and you can get a feeling for his life.

anothermandoon

I'm an idiot and tend to babble at length. I'm also a newbie that hasn't as yet read the charter.

to the newb; if you're feeling rehabilitated, feel free to request to have the ban lifted. If you can't or won't be civil, don't bother requesting.

Fajitas!

Rymus Power!!!

Any result Jools? I'm looking forward to see what you've done!

Valentia

Rymus, He's not as newbie as he seems. He has used other handles to abuse people on other fora.

joolsveer

Fajitas! wrote:

Rymus Power!!!

Any result Jools? I'm looking forward to see what you've done!

I haven't had a chance yet to do anything major with this shot as I like the basic photo and I don't to make a right hames out of it. The problem is my wife likes it (she would prefer maybe if I hadn't caught so many wrinkles) and I want to festina lente.

knights of doon

Fajitas! wrote:

Rymus Power!!!

Blah blah, blah blahblahblah blah. so there!

Hey Rymus why don't you just edit this post and stop free speech again in this post from an innocent Newbie

LoLth: Or how about I have a go instead. Dont care who started it but abusive posts (and alter ego postings) are not allowed. If you have an issue with a mod, report the mod to the admins. In the meantime. You're barred from teh photography forum until you can prove that you are not actually anothermandoon under a new account.

Knights of Doon.

back doon

Rymus,

I admit to being Knights of Doon but how are on earth am I meant to prove to you that I am someone that I dont know. You prove to me that you arent anothermandoon. See what I mean?.

Now you have forced me into creating another account with a false user name just to clear my name.

KNIGHTS OF DOON

rymus

Jeez, it's getting to the point where a guy can't go on holiday anymore without getting this kind of crap on returning. Amazing.

evilhomer

I can't believe I had to waste time reading his posts!

Boo! to the alter-egos!

Oh and Jool, Nice portrait, I agree with the guys that there is a little too much blur, but great detail.